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This question Why is the fact that Ukraine President Zelenskiy publicly stated that Trump didn't pressure him whatsoever being ignored? was removed from HNQ by Philipp. Any particular reason for this [non-reversible] mod action aside from the controversial nature of the topic?

(I did notice the [very] negatively voted accepted answer, which was eventually deleted, by myself included. The user who had posted that answer, has now reposted a fairly similar answer, but at least that 2nd one isn't yet accepted.)

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  • 3
    I feel like the fact that it has 13 answers (w/ 4 as <= 0 score) + 2 deleted answers shows that it's gotten a lot of attention already, and a lot of that attention has been low quality stuff
    – divibisan
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 0:30
  • 2
    @divibisan so if someone doesn't like one of our HNQ questions they merely need to post some low-quality dribble? It doesn't seem right to give in to that..
    – JJJ Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 1:23
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    @JJJ Personally, I'm not a big fan of HNQ in general – I think it attracts low quality, highly partisan answers which give people the wrong idea about the kind of questions and answers we want here. I see turning off HNQ as a defense mechanism against that. You seem to think of it as a benefit for the site?
    – divibisan
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 1:30
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    @divibisan it certainly generates traffic. I'm not saying all of the traffic is the kind we want but it's a way to get new users. See also this question about removing from HNQ in general.
    – JJJ Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 1:36
  • @JJJ Good point – also, I'm getting off topic and we probably shouldn't get into a discussion on HNQ in general here. That's my guess for why it was removed (and why I would have removed it myself), but I probably shouldn't speak for Philipp
    – divibisan
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 1:51
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    Oof, 20 comment flags on the question alone, and more than a handful of low-quality answers. I think we were losing the battle on this one. Removing a question from the HNQ is never a good option, but sometimes it's necessary to stop the excitement.
    – yannis Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 8:47
  • @JJJ If you don't want a question on HNQ, then you should flag it for moderator attention.
    – Philipp Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 10:29
  • @Philipp yea I (and I imagine other regular users too) don't have the insight to really make that determination. I can see the deleted answers, I flag them regularly and vote to delete them, I think that works fairly quickly on this site (especially compared to some other sites, more so now that a lot of mods are on strike). The comments, however, I didn't really know were a problem, so that's an interesting to see Yannis's comment on that.
    – JJJ Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 15:51
  • @JJJ: As I flagged at least 3 of them on that question (I think) the comments were mostly from high-rep regulars, not random HNQ participants.
    – 264 champagne bottles on ice
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 16:03
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    @Fizz yea I've mostly flagged answer attempts in comments (not sure if it was this question or different questions) but those tend to be established users as well. On other sites it's encouraged to answer in comments if the question is deemed off-topic, so that would explain if some new users do so as well. Of course a lot of partisan comments are just to make a point, that's not okay and I think it's pretty obvious.
    – JJJ Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 16:13
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    @JJJ Established users blatantly ignoring the purpose of comments is another ongoing problem on this site. But it is a problem which is a lot worse on some topics than others. And it sets a very bad example for those people who don't visit the site regularly and get the impression that debating in comments is normal on this website.
    – Philipp Mod
    Commented Oct 27, 2019 at 11:54

1 Answer 1

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I kicked the question from HNQ (after 10k views) because I don't think it's a good question to represent our community and attract the users we want on this site.

  1. The question itself is one of those "XYZ sucks, am I right?" questions.
  2. It attracted a lot of bad answers. 5 with negative score, three of them got deleted.
  3. It also attracted a lot of bad comments. I constantly had to delete arguments between Trump supporters and Trump opponents trying to push their narratives. The last thing we want are even more users who mistake this site for another discussion forum.
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  • re: 3. Has there ever been any thought to a "not a comment" option in the list of reasons when flagging a comment? picking "Other" + "not a comment" seems like a waste of time in most cases on this site.
    – bobsburner
    Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 12:55
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    @bobsburner Just flag the comment as "It's no longer needed".
    – Philipp Mod
    Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 16:01

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