From first glance there's still some decent traffic on Daring Fireball submissions, even inside the times Gruber asserts deadweighting.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
How are stories ranked?
The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.
Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.
I expect there's been an increase in user flags.
BTW "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
Same rule applies for submissions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
FWIW, I'm a regular reader of your blog and have not flagged any daringfireball submissions. But this article is asking to be flagged. It's a needlessly provocative title and not all that interesting to discuss.
I'd also like to point out a bit of hypocrisy on your part. You don't accept comments on your site. If you want folks to comment on your blog, maybe reconsider hosting the comments yourself?
https://shawnblanc.net/2007/07/why-daring-fireball-is-commen...
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/16/powazek-comment...
But as you say he should ask @dang for more informations.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173809
As far as I know, once an article is flagged it cannot become unflagged by user action. Only dang can unflag articles he thinks the community deserves to discuss.
Articles can also become `[dead]` which I think happens automatically for submissions detected as spam. Per dang, users can vouch for such submissions:
Something really in the water the last few years in tech circles. Or maybe just disgruntled as the stock compensation infinite money printer has ended.
1. There was an exponential increase in people talking about FOSS, leveling out in 2021.
2. There's been an exponential decrease in people talking about startups, leveling out in 2021.
With that in mind, remember that there are karma gates to flagging and that you need many fewer flags than upvotes to sink something. My suspicion is that HN had a pretty big culture shift starting around 2016 but really peaking by 2021 that shifted from the old startup, builder focus to its current FOSS, anti-authoritarian mood. In other words the culture that used to be on Slashdot and technical subreddits found its way back onto HN. While the older HN was more homogeneous in its makeup and narrower in its topics it was also a lot less contentious than today's HN is, mirroring the culture found on Reddit and comment sections of tech-focused publications like The Verge. Today's HN is broad, unfocused, and a lot more like a mix of r/technology and r/programming than it used to be.
Flaggers, I suspect, have older HN values. They preferred the narrower focus of the old site and really dislike the highly contentious big comment threads that are on today's HN. It's hard to have proof of this since flaggers only interact by flagging, but it certainly is the opinion that I have as an older user well over the karma threshold to flag. As such I suspect we're seeing a culture clash play out where the flaggers are trying to hold onto older HN values while commenters here are engaging with HN in the way it's considered in the zeitgeist today, namely an alternative to tech subreddits.
Maybe the flaggers will keep the site balanced between the two perspectives but I suspect either the flaggers will get tired and churn.