Ask HN: Flagging front page stories

10 points

12 years ago

After consideration, I just flagged several stories that are currently on the front page:

  I Spent A Month Living In A Romanian Sexcam Studio
  http://m.vice.com/read/bucharest-webcam-studios-america-outsourcing-sex-trade

  Invisible Child: Dasani’s Homeless Life
  http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/

  Governments admit to faking terrorism: a list
  http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/12/governments-admit-they-carry-out-false-flag-terror/

They are excellent articles, and I feel bad about doing so. I'm sure the submitters posted them in good faith because they enjoyed them and wanted to share them with others. I read them, and enjoyed them too. By and large, the comments are high quality: better than vast majority of discussion on the mainstream internet.

But that's the problem: I'm scared that if HN continues moving to becoming a discussion site for mainstream news, that it will be impossible to avoid a great slide in quality of stories and commentary. Historically the odds are really against it.

Maybe that's OK, maybe things have to evolve. If it happens, certainly there will be other sites that pop up to replace it, and they too will have their period of quality conversation before they too evolve. Still, it seems like an unnecessary loss.

Am I wrong to be worried? Is there a better solution than flagging high-quality popular articles that don't have a hacker or start-up focus?

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