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Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

theguardian.com

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Re: Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

#11

Post by tinco »

_yosefk wrote: post #3
im3w1l wrote: post #2

Trolling is a word. It means something: "make a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them." I can't help but wonder why the author attempts to describe anything he doesn't like, in his moderator role, as trolling. This seems to be a general trend in newspaper people describing their comment sections.

To elaborate on your point - from the article: "They are comment-thread poison – men’s rights activists who act as if articles about women’s issues are their gender’s single biggest problem, climate change deniers who will drag any conversation about energy policy into murky pseudo-science, and borderline racists for whom there is no issue that cannot be pinned on immigration (UK) or black people (US)." ...incidental…

Not a single example out of two examples chosen to be familiar to his target audience, it must mean he moderates with a strong bias.

Great to have you in this discussion, did you realize you were drawing an exaggerated conclusion from weak evidence when you wrote your comment? Do you realize it now? Would you consider your comment to be one with an agenda as the author theorized or do you have a different motivation?

Re: Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

#12

Post by pieter1976 »

Seems vastly overblown to call this "the worst job in the world". There are far, far worse things people do to get paid.

Sure jumping out of your tree-hugging everybody-love-everybody mindset is probably a shock, but there's plenty of hatred in the real world.

Re: Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

#13

Post by m0nty »

cbeach wrote: post #10

The Guardian seems to be doing well on HN recently. For such a one-sided political publication, with no technical merit, that seems odd.

> one-sided political publication

They certainly are left-aligned: they are famous (and notorious) for it. The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature, I've even seen people criticised during debates for being a "good Guardian-reader" (i.e. a part-time socialist).

But they do publish articles on relevant topics, and are prepared to stick their collective neck out for important stories like the Snowden case. They are probably a few notches above the open sewer which characterises much of the rest of the UK press, and it's clear that many people on HN find them relevant, if not always correct.

Re: Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

#14

Post by UncleSlacky »

m0nty wrote: post #13
cbeach wrote: post #10

The Guardian seems to be doing well on HN recently. For such a one-sided political publication, with no technical merit, that seems odd.

> one-sided political publication They certainly are left-aligned: they are famous (and notorious) for it. The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature, I've even seen people criticised during debates for being a "good Guardian-reader" (i.e. a part-time socialist). But they do publish articles on relevant topics, and are prepared to stick their collective neck out for important…

Lately, though, they seem to have developed a bias (or maybe it's just become more evident?) against what you might call the "non-establishment" left, people like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders get unexpectedly short shrift from most of their writers, whereas their (often female) competition, like Yvette Cooper and Hillary Clinton, get glowing coverage. This has been pointed out extensively in the comment sections, to no avail...

Re: Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

#16

Post by Angostura »

m0nty wrote: post #13
cbeach wrote: post #10

The Guardian seems to be doing well on HN recently. For such a one-sided political publication, with no technical merit, that seems odd.

> one-sided political publication They certainly are left-aligned: they are famous (and notorious) for it. The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature, I've even seen people criticised during debates for being a "good Guardian-reader" (i.e. a part-time socialist). But they do publish articles on relevant topics, and are prepared to stick their collective neck out for important…

Also Jack Schofield was writing regular decent IT-focussed articles in The Guardian long before most other UK newspapers.

Re: Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

#17

Post by jensen123 »

m0nty wrote: post #13
cbeach wrote: post #10

The Guardian seems to be doing well on HN recently. For such a one-sided political publication, with no technical merit, that seems odd.

> one-sided political publication They certainly are left-aligned: they are famous (and notorious) for it. The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature, I've even seen people criticised during debates for being a "good Guardian-reader" (i.e. a part-time socialist). But they do publish articles on relevant topics, and are prepared to stick their collective neck out for important…

> The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature

I find some of these caricatures interesting. Like how many leftists are vegans or vegetarians, and how many libertarians are meat-lovers. You would perhaps think that diet should have no correlation with political opinions, but it certainly seems to have.

Or take clothing. Among leftists, there seems to be more people wearing stuff like sandals, colorful clothing, dreadlocks, piercings etc. than among right-wingers or libertarians. When I see pictures of libertarians or right-wingers, they often seem to be wearing conformist looking clothes, such as suits. Is there a reason for this?

In order to do well economically, you probably need to be careful not to offend other people, so you cannot express yourself too much. People who express themselves more (wear what they want to, rather than what is inoffensive), are probably more likely to become economic losers. And if you're an economic loser, I guess left-wing politics (tax the rich!) is appealing.

Re: Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

#18

Post by c594815 »

jensen123 wrote: post #17
m0nty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one-sided political publication They certainly are left-aligned: they are famous (and notorious) for it. The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature, I've even seen people criticised during debates for being a "good Guardian-reader" (i.e. a part-time socialist). But they do publish articles on relevant topics, and are prepared to stick their collective neck out for important…

> The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular caricature I find some of these caricatures interesting. Like how many leftists are vegans or vegetarians, and how many libertarians are meat-lovers. You would perhaps think that diet should have no correlation with political opinions, but it certainly seems to have. Or take clothing. Among leftists, there seems to be more people wearing stuff…

Right-wing, besides being capitalist, also means being conservative. Which implies respect for tradition, etiquette and savoir-vivre. Other than diet, another interesting aspect is architecture. Leftists like brutalism and modernism, while right-wingers like traditional architecture, have a look here: https://www.facebook.com/ArchMMXII.

Re: Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator

#20

Post by takno »

pieter1976 wrote: post #12

Seems vastly overblown to call this "the worst job in the world". There are far, far worse things people do to get paid. Sure jumping out of your tree-hugging everybody-love-everybody mindset is probably a shock, but there's plenty of hatred in the real world.

The article finishes by saying it's the best job in the world. Did you read it?
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