Granted, given the size of that thread, there's too much noise there for new pertinent information such as this submission, especially without the ability for new comments to surface easily.

Why have all these threads dropped so far down from the front page?

A combination of user flags, software penalties, and moderation downweights.

Re the mod aspect: we have nothing against this story in principle but the utter degradation of these threads into predictable, reflexive vitriol from (dare I say it) both sides is some of the most profoundly uncurious "conversation" (where by conversation I mean people snarking as loudly as they can and hating on others) that I've seen on HN. It's a disgrace and I feel ashamed.

If it were up to me I'd send everyone to bed without supper, but there's nothing we can do besides downweight the worst that shows up here. We can't convince people of anything, such as the purpose of the site, the destructiveness of what they're doing, or to listen to each other.

It's a lesson in human nature. The line from this to people clubbing each other (and I don't mean dancing together) seems continuous to me.

Thanks. I often feel concerned when interesting stories get downweighted on hn, but comments like this remind me why. Still, it feels like the discussion is all lost in chaos.

Kind of wish there were an online equivalent to the supposed "mirror behind customer service desk" trick. https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/ehevmg/lpt_wor...

This definitely seems like the right thing to do. I’ve noticed more and more one line snarky comments on HN the past year. As well, the top posts have trended less and less technical.

You should start disabling or /dev/null-ing votes from people who engage with the site in ways against its ethos. It's an extreme measure but this shit is getting out of hand.

The frontpage ranking algorithm is pretty simple (and open source). It just takes into account post age + votes with an exponential falloff over time. It doesn't take into account comments, so going to news.ycombinator.com/active is probably where you'll see the more active threads.

https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking...

It's deeper than that, stories with 'too much' engagement get auto down ranked.

The open source code doesn't tell the whole story, as they leave bits out related to moderation.