> it sounds like what happened with the original submission was that a moderator accidentally put "(2010)" in the title and users flagged it because they incorrectly thought it was old
Which bit? The 2010 thing is precisely what happened. It was a case of sleep deprivation, which is one lesson of how trying too hard to make this place good can mess with a person.
The other bit was just my attempt to explain why users might have flagged the post. User flags were what demoted its rank, and it isn't obvious why people flagged it. There's also the issue that meta posts aren't great for HN in the first place, but those rarely lack for upvotes.
It would be nice if there was non-filtered view of HN available for users with a rep above 500, much like the "show dead" option for user comments that have been hidden. Basically allowing the submissions to be placed in the submission rank as if their ranking was not pinged due to users flagging the submission.
Understand though I could easily see spammers using the data and getting 500 really should not take more than a month if you post a handful of comments a day; for example: 25 days, 5 comments a day, average of 4 upvotes per comment.
Worth noting with a rep of 500+ HN users are able to downvote comments.
Yeah, and I think the karma system works well overall. It isn't ideal for people that are significantly more consumer than producer of content, but I would guess that is the minority.
I feel there are a lot more consumers than you might imagine, myself included. I'm on HN constantly but I rarely ever comment. The karma system is not for everyone.
I'm not sure why that information would be valuable to spammers. It would only tell them that their posts are being flagged, but it wouldn't really help them get to the front page.
From the point a spammer is identify until their interaction with the system becomes a burden to deal with, it's better to not let them know it's known they a spammer. Craigslist does this by "ghosting" postings that's flagged as spam; that is the spammer sees the posting as live, maybe even gets an automated reply to see how/if they respond, but the general public does not see the posting.
if you don't need the filtering from the hivemind, you can read https://news.ycombinator.com/newest (I'm not sure if it has a RSS.) Warning: it's full of crap.
And you can enable the showdead flag. Warning: The worst crap is [dead] so this version has even more crap.
Anyway, there are from time to time some interesting articles that are unlucky and don't get even a vote, so after reading the front page please go to the newest page and try to find a hidden jewel there.
To be fair, "the feed" (assume you mean the new feed) is populated by the hive, it's just not sorted by votes or any other filter; of course unless the mods remove/hide a submission for some reason.
It was asked by someone yesterday, but the question got lost in the noise, whether the voting ring detection extends to flagging rings (whether on posts or comments)?
It would be naive to assume that it doesn't happen...
Europe became rich through brute military conquest/colonization of the Asia, Africa and South America. They capitalized on free labour, free flow of ideas and goods from their colonies.
Actually diseases from Europe swept through the population, decimating it; except right at the coast the natives met the devastating germs before they met the Europeans themselves. There was brute force, but little of it was needed. Europe got Syphilis in return, which also caused widespread death for a generation or two, before mutating into a less fatal form.
As I said in another post: this begs the question: why did the Europeans manage to be so much better at brute military conquest/colonisation than anybody else? Rest assured that everbody else also tried ...
Guns (Military weaponry) and the Bible (Idealogy, Culture). They used their bigger better guns to physical subjugate their subjects. They then used their religion or the idea that their culture was superior to mentally subjugate them. Once their subjects were physically and mentally subjugated they proceeding to build an economic empire on their backs.
This is a daring proposal. What you are essentially saying is that we could simply walk into another country, tell the population: "Hey we are better than you, do as I tell you" ... and voila, we rule them.
It really doesn't work this way. If you don't believe me, try your scheme on your neighbours. Report back.
"Software must be free" usually means free and in speech not free as in beer.