For the past couple of weeks, I've found that probably 20-30% of front page HN links are unresolvable with "this site can't be reached" errors. Checking the comment thread, it's clear that the links are loading for other people.
Has HN become such a traffic cannon that we bring down anything that hits the front page and I'm always late to the party? Are the sites being brought down by heavy AI bot traffic? What gives?
Slop filter.
Why not just remove the link in that case?
automations make mistakes, humans can vouch
HN has a general rule of thumb that they do not delete content, exceptions of course
If you mean /news and not /newest, yes some sites can be overwhelmed for a time with HN traffic and sites that repeatedly end up on /news I've heard have been known to adjust 'referer'
The description looks more similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect Usually it's fixed if you check the site again later.