This is a really rough spot, giving users the tools to remove visibility from a post will eventually get abused. I would genuinely be interested in some form of anonymized stats on the individual accounts and the posts they are flagging but that's a whole deal.

Am I wrong that there used to be a flagged option on the lists page, or am I missing where that is?

Honestly I don't ask for anonymized stats but rather public stats.

If you flag a post, you are inadvertedly trying to push a hn post away.

That's fine if the current moderation finds it okay and I respect HN moderation but once again another post gets flagged & dead.

If someone flags a post, they should have a reasoning why. So have it public, so that its easier to call people out if they are being unfair and it would make people more aware of who they are flagging and actually why.

Flagged articles should just list the usernames that flagged it--in a queryable way so anyone could do an analysis and see who is operating in bad faith.

Sorry, but I can't imagine doing that - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581665.

You could publish hashes of the flaggers' usernames rather than the usernames themselves. The point is not to go on witch hunts--it's to stop the endless discussions and questioning around whether what we are all seeing (certain topics always seeming to disappear quickly) is the result of flagging activity that is evenly distributed across the site or coming from a relative handful of brigaders.

Everything I know about internet dynamics and human nature tells me that that wouldn't work—it would just exacerbate the conflict.

The problems we're talking about come from the fundamentals: how HN is defined (i.e. its mandate), how the site is structured (one front page that everyone shares, only 30 stories per page, etc.), how people feel, and what's going on in the world at large. Given those fundamentals, these conflicts are inevitable. All we can do is work on how we respond to them—trying to respond better, more creatively, more relationally. By "we" I mean all of us: mods qua mods, users qua users, mods qua users, and users qua mods.

That's not going to happen to anyone's satisfaction, but if it can happen at all, that has to be good enough.

I feel like Freud telling you guys you're all doomed to frustration!

Thanks. Ultimately, as users, we need to trust that you guys are taking the right actions to defend against what appears from our point of view to be a sustained and coordinated cyber attack on the website. I hope I speak for a lot of my fellow users, that we trust it is being treated with the seriousness that you'd treat any other security vulnerability.

I went through and looked at all the accounts that flagged the current thread, which took a long time since there were many of them. I found a handful (about half a dozen) who looked to be flagging for exclusively political reasons. That's a small fraction of the total.

In other words, the situation on this story turns out to fit the usual pattern as I described it a few weeks ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818):

The accounts that flag these stories are almost always established accounts, so I'm not too worried about them being sockpuppets or paid influencers.

From everything we've seen, flags on political stories are a coalition between (1) users who don't want to see (most) political stories on HN, and (2) users who don't like the politics of a particular story they are flagging. In other words, users who care about the quality of the site, and users who care about a political struggle. This dynamic shows up on all the main political topics.

There are some accounts that abuse flags in the following sense: they only ever flag political stories, and their flags are always aligned with the same political position. When we see accounts doing that, we usually take away their flagging rights.

This, so far, seems sufficient to me. If we start to see indications that it's not sufficient, we'll take more action.

To make the point clearer, I went through all the other accounts that flagged the OP (i.e. not including the half dozen abusive cases) and collected examples of other stories they had flagged. I'll put that list in a reply to the current post since it's so long. I think anyone who browses that list will see what I mean when I say that most of these accounts are not flagging for purely political reasons.

I don't know if that assuages your concerns—probably not, because it's in the nature of the internet that people feel this way and explanations, data, etc., don't address those feelings—but we can at least try.

Ultimately we have to trust you, dang. Thanks for the example posted here.

I flag a lot and I would be absolutely fine with those flags being completely transparent.

I understand you're between a rock and a hard place on this one but I also notice that this thread has not had its flags removed, which you could easily do.

I understand what you are talking about but trust me when I say this that HN users are genuinely really really frustrated about current flag situation of HN.

Please don't just say that the system is as is and no change can be upgraded.

I feel so frustrated at times whenever I comment in posts and I am observing a lot of the articles themselves getting flagged effectively killing the discussion.

I spent an hour today trying to find HN api to build my own custom HN alternative on which people can respond after a post turns dead for not much apparent reason.

It frustrated me because it was about Children's safety & how EU's taking action against Grok in this case... I mean I just want to share my frustration right in here that people aren't thinking of even children but an us vs them dynamic or some reason and flagging and deadding posts. This is a new low that really really frustrated me & I feel like you might understand why too.

Please change the system. I beg of you to fix it because I am seriously frustrated by not even knowing what can get flagged or not or even Dead. I am not against the moderation but can we make it so that instead of auto flagging atleast, its a flag that moderators have to pass?

Please dang, I know you want the best of HN community too. Let's work together, I feel like much of HN community really appreciates you (myself included) but we are all frustrated about it. How do we convey such change in any way where the idea of change seems feasible because It just seems that the idea of change seems like something which doesn't feel possible in HN from whenever I read such threads and that does depress me because HN is the best community i am part of. I am proud of being part of HN and many others are too and this is why we are vocal about some need of change. Some need that moderators are willing to hear our demands of frustrations and fix some aspects with change.

Once again, thank you for your moderation efforts. And I hope we can have a fruitful discussion about my comment in which I have tried to express my deep frustration today...

I am a minor dang, I have got female friends my age and If any one of these photos would've been abused by Grok, I will tell you that they would've been scarred for life, maybe worse. These could have been someone's sisters and daughters.

And what HN community flagged was a post about EU trying to levy a 6% fine on Grok...

My blood boils thinking that there are people in the community I am proud of being whose first thoughts were to flag such an extremely important discussion to make it dead.

I don't come here for politics but I still discuss about them often. I primarily come here to enjoy tech but man oh man I hope you realize my frustration and other users frustrations & are able to implement some thing which can satisfy us well instead of doing nothing please!

I know you aren't a corporate sellout and are passionate about this community, I just hope that something can be done. I believe in you & trust you after writing this message that you will do what you feel is right.

Have a nice day dang.

Edit: Looks like the other thread got reopened again. If Dang opened it (maybe after reading this?) then thanks a lot broski! This is absolutely great that you fixed it man!

But I hope that Hackernews can have such that things like these just don't happen ie. wrongful flags of genuine topics in the first place etc. or something can still be done or atleast some discussion about it within HN discussions or if possible, please discuss it with a community by creating a ask HN just once and discussing it with other (moderators? if I remember I think you are the only one paid moderator, or maybe tomhow iirc) but my point is please just involve the community just once and weigh in for this problem once again.

Modern problems require modern solutions. I just hope that Hackernews keeps on growing and false positives can be stopped and such system can be generated to prevent such as I must admit that the amount of frustration at that time was seriously immense.

Thanks once again for opening that discussion again and once again have a nice day dang!

100%

Phrasing political flaggers as "those who care about the quality of the site" already shows the hand here. You can argue downvotes are for disagreement, bit Flags are for slop and spam, not blocking what I don't agree on.

Flags are basically me waving my hands in the air calling for a mod. That's not something I do unless I feel it's outright harmful to the site. I'm a late commenter so I pretty much never have to flag postings (mostly just comment responses that come straight out of Twitter).

Currently the "discussion of leverage" you are talking about is out of the hands of the leaders who run these programs.

The amount of disrespect you have shown for someone that is just telling you 99% of federal workers have absolutely no leverage says a lot.

> Currently the "discussion of leverage" you are talking about is out of the hands of the leaders who run these programs.

That's an assertion without any any argument. It means nothing.

> The amount of disrespect you have shown for someone that is just telling you 99% of federal workers have absolutely no leverage says a lot.

What does it say? Why is such a person somehow special?

Isn't the US supposed to be the birthplace of modern democracy? When did you guys forget about protests and rallies?

> Isn't the US supposed to be the birthplace of modern democracy?

I would not dare not mention the revolutions in England and in France. And before that some Greece city states, and definitely Rome. The US declaration of independence is just another point.

It's just not practical to organize a rally to save a niche cybersecurity program. People are busy protesting to protect Medicaid and keep themselves out of foreign gulags, they can't divert the attention to CVE.

That's fine, protests aren't surgical tools anyway. As long as people are protesting, it's OK.

I apologize for jumping in this convo with unrelated stuff but I was looking at my history and since I can't message you I just wanted to let you know years later how much your reply here resonates with me now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18475792

Wow, that is a blast from the past. I don't recall my frame of mind in writing that, well. Hopefully it isn't quite as cynical as I feel the past few months. At least, hopefully that isn't the part that is resonating! :D

Unsure if anyone has made a game specifically for that. But there are plenty of intentionally unsecure servers (no VAC, or other anti-cheat) in games like counter strike for Hacker vs Hacker.

Just finished rewatching sg1 as well and in a later episode Carter even makes fun of herself for the absurdity of that first episode gonads comment.

Worked for me just now. It clicks for a bit than says "US Naval Observatory Master Clock" + the time.

For me it was ringing for 2 minutes before I gave up. I have the timestamp on my phone to prove it.

But then again Sprint may just be trash at providing phone service yet again. I may try again from a VOIP provider later.

Not the OP but I am very concerned with telling people to pipe anything from curl straight to your shell.

I think what the comment you are replying to are getting at is the fact that installing pip packages from the Internet and importing them in your python app is not that different from piping code from the Internet into your python executable. In both cases python code from the Internet will be executed with your user privileges from within Python. Unless you audit every python package you consume, you might as well accept a curl https://example.com | python installer too.

It is not that long ago that PyPI hosted malicious (typo-squatting) packages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256121

Not in my experience they don't. I use OVH and nfoservers and I've had an issue like this exactly once on both hosts.

On OVH one of my servers was hacked and running typical scripts that are run once that happens (port checking, common admin credentials, brute force attempts, etc)

They cut off all internet access to and from the server and sent me an alert stating what was happening and that I needed to VNC into the server, resolve the issue, and let them know how/why it happened and how I resolved the issue. Once that was done they just removed all the blocks on the server and we all went on our merry way.

Edit: To clarify the VNC console is on their site, not a remote connection.

I run the IPFS daemon on Hetzner, and it was trying to connect to local IPs because of some misconfiguration. They sent me an email saying my server was portscanning their LAN, and I should fix it and email them how I fixed it.

I didn't know what they were talking about so I replied saying that, they helped me shut down the local port connections and I never heard another complaint from them. There was no downtime or banning at any point.

You said "not in my experience they don't" and then literally describe in detail how they did exactly what I was saying they do.

I guess he meant they don't lock your whole account but only stop a single server.

I should have been clearer. This is exactly what I meant.

> Epic buys Rocket League publisher, announces Epic Launcher exclusive, and goes silent after backlash

Seems like a better way to put it. They are buying IP left and right and pushing their unfinished, buggy client in a very unhealthy way.

[0] - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-05-01-epic-acquires-...

I've bought a few games on Epic, and had no problems. The lack of junkware like on Steam is great – I can honestly browse the store knowing that every game is high quality (even if not necessarily in the genre I enjoy).

Achieveemnts not popping up helps focus on the actual game.

Cloud save, family sharing etc. are of marginal use for me and I imagine 99% of consumers outside the vocal minority.

Well, I was about to comment that the lack of cloud save is the absolute dealbraker for me as I play games at home and at work, so if I can't sync saves automatically then I won't buy a game from there(#1 reason why I haven't bought Metro Exodus for instance, game which I am otherwise super interested in).

But I guess that makes me a vocal minority :P

I used to “cloud save” my Borderlands 2 save files by symlinking the save game folder to a Dropbox folder

Yes, that would be an option if my work allowed any services like that(and yes, it's slightly odd that dropbox/google drive are not allowed, but Steam cloud sync is).

Not sure if it helps any, but box.net allows webdav access and can be mounted natively by Windows.

Oh but it's not a technical issue - both dropbox and google drive would install and work fine, we have full administrative access on our machines with no restrictions. But it is against policy.

One man's Junkware is another's charming indie. GOG is a curated store and, among others, initially denied Zachtronics game Opus Magnum. I personally appreciate the fact that Steam and Itch don't curate.

The link you provided doesn't say what you claim it says. The parent post is discussing giving away free games, not acquisitions. What is unhealthy about the way Epic is trying to attract users? I know they've received some negative press but I have yet to see a good argument for this.

Buying IP in order to pull it off competing storefronts is anti-consumer.

>thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers

IIRC, Valve games were available on Origin.

When EA pulled their games from Steam, Valve replied in kind.

One thing that irks me is that Valve seems way more committed to interoperability, open standards and its consumers' wellness than its competitors (likely as a result of being privately owned); while the competitors in question use every trick in the evil corporate playbook to try to increase their marketshare. We've seen how they play, and the friendly façade is likely to change to ad more value-extracting one once/if they gain marketshare.

No shit. Linux gaming make's Valve a ludicrously small amount of money compared the the, frankly herculean, effort they've put into making it viable.

Valve made L4D2. Or at least did a significant portion of the work. The problem with Epic is that they are either paying publishers for timed exclusives, or purchasing publishers outright in order to create artificial monopolies, and restricting consumer choice.

Turtle Rock made L4D. Valve bought Turtle Rock.

If paying for exclusives is bad what viable alternative strategy should Epic be using to get users to their store?

But you are talking about different games. TR made L4D and Valve bought them. but Valve made L4D2.

And they released L4D2 a year after L4D sparking a lot of community uproar, starting things like the L4D2Boycot groups.

Man, just talking about the game makes me want to play it again. That was such an addiction for me xD

What Valve did on L4D2 isn't relevant. My point was that Valve did the same thing with L4D as Epic is doing with Rocket League. Talking about L4D2 does not show that this point was wrong.

I was just pointing out that you 2 (parent posters) were not talking about the same game. I'm not denying your point or anything lol

Making a good store that people want to visit?

Edit: I was being serious.

"what viable alternative strategy should Epic be using to get users to their store?"

What's preferable for the consumer? buying a monopoly, or competing on quality, price, customer service, etc, etc, etc.

> competing on quality, price, customer service, etc, etc, etc.

What metric are you using to define quality and how would it make people use this store over Steam? How much cheaper would you need to sell games to get people to go to the Epic store? Would developers put there games on the Epic store if the price had to be so low that they made more per sale on Steam? Good customer service being a factor requires having customers to experience it. It helps long term but won't get your first wave of customers.

Quality in this case could be website design, the overall quality of games, or discoverability of good games.

Price in this case would be margin. If Steam takes 10%, Epic could take 5%. Games makers could pass the savings on, or increase their own margins.

Yes good customer service requires customers. What's your point? Your first customer experiences good customer service, mentions it to their friends, who then shop with you, who then mention it to their friends. It's called word of mouth. It's a powerful marketing tool.

Website design won't drive customers to a new store instead of Steam. Epic is curating their store so that should already cover quality and discoverability. Apparently they think that isn't enough.

> Price in this case would be margin. If Steam takes 10%, Epic could take 5%. Games makers could pass the savings on, or increase their own margins.

Steam takes 30% and Epic takes 12%. Very few games have chosen to reduce their price to go with the increased percentage.

For a web based store customer service only matters when things go wrong. Most customers should get a fairly standard experience of paying money and receiving their product. Do you consider Steam's customer service bad? Would a marginal improvement in customer service convince you to deal with the hassle of installing another launcher, setting up a payment method on a new store, and splitting your game library?

The store is 4 months old.

All of these things don't happen instantly.

You asked for a viable strategy, this is it as evidenced by the fact they're already trying it. Is it guaranteed? No. But nothing in business, or life, is.

I asked for a viable alternative strategy that didn't also involve paying for exclusives to initially attract customers. Apparently Epic doesn't agree with you about this being viable by itself.

This is really a big part of it for me. I have no problem using multiple launchers, but Epic has given me little reason to think that they'll secure my payment info or account details.

How about releasing the games at a cheaper price, as Epic charge so much less? Cheaper prices for games, shows a real commitement to the End User.

I've seen several comparisons showing that Epic's prices are not actually lower than Steam's (in general).

Can't find them right now, and don't have the time to do a thorough comparison, but looking at the first three games on the Epic Store front page that also have Steam pages with prices seems to confirm this. That's "Oxygen not Included", "Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2" and "Outward", all of which are priced the same on both stores (€22.99, €59.99 and €39.99, respectively).

> If paying for exclusives is bad what viable alternative strategy should Epic be using to get users to their store?

Offering the games DRM-free (the audience that GOG is aiming - though I am really concerned about what GOG is currently doing with GOG Galaxy and cloud synchronisation).

I don't have time to look it up right now but I'm pretty sure GOG had layoffs a few months ago. DRM free doesn't seem to be a winning strategy.

Epic are trying to do with gaming what Disney are doing with TV -- not pay distributers when they can do that but themselves, and use a strong monopoly on a sector of popular material to leverage their way in to distribution.

It sucks for consumers.