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

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

#21

Post by digi_owl »

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.

Yeah it seems to fall afoul Poe's law from the other end, by failing to distingush bertween a honest believer and someone apeing the same to produce an emotional response.

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

#22

Post by takno »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #14
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…

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,…

I think a lot of people over 40ish view Jeremy Corbyn as very much establishment left, with impeccable roots in the years when the establishment left were in the business of losing and losing hard. The guardian certainly give that view a good deal of prominence, but also feature writers who take a much more positive line on the left. The overall quality has dropped a bit with more clickbait and cif nonsense, but it's still the best place to get news, and the fact that they publicly sweat policy like this is a positive sign

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

#23

Post by digi_owl »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #14
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…

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,…

Likely becase the left has been represented by what i have seen labeled "champagne left". Basically people making "leftist" claims while socially and economically being far removed from the traditional (workers) left.

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

#24

Post by m0nty »

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…

> if you're an economic loser, I guess left-wing politics (tax the rich!) is appealing

That is, in itself, an appalling caricature, albeit some left-wingers might be in that category. It's like saying all libertarians/right-wingers are Gordon Gecko "greed is good", devil-take-the-hindmost callous money-grubbers.

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

#25

Post by sgift »

megalodon wrote: post #19
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.

Every newspaper is inherently political or "one-sided". Look it up.

It is only one-sided if it's not the side you prefer, obviously. How can you dare to suggest that opinions are just that ... opinions?

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

#26

Post by sgift »

megalodon wrote: post #19
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.

Every newspaper is inherently political or "one-sided". Look it up.

It is only one-sided if it's not the side you prefer, obviously. How can you dare to suggest that opinions are just that ... opinions?

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

#27

Post by marbletiles »

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.

This is as tedious a fight as the old "hacker doesn't mean cracker!1!" one was.

Words (and phrases such as "begging the question") mean what they're understood to mean by the majority, much though those of us who understand their "proper" definitions might like to fight those tides.

Sure, you can still use the lesser-known or overtaken meanings in particular scenarios when you know your audience has a shared understanding, but that's true of all jargon or less-common definitions

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

#28

Post by spriggan3 »

megalodon wrote: post #19
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.

Every newspaper is inherently political or "one-sided". Look it up.

> Every newspaper is inherently political or "one-sided". Look it up.

Unfortunately Yes. I've been thinking about a way to take multiple articles on the same subject from different sources and separate facts from opinions and narratives in an automated way. I wonder if such an app already exists. By comparing multiple sources from different political sides / locations , it should be possible to eliminate bias (unless all sources are biased the same way).

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

#29

Post by iorrus »

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.

One man's troll is another man's freedom fighter. Depends on the agenda of the website. Guardian is the premier left of centre newspaper in the UK as a result, it will be targeted by those who disagree with their views.

Are these people trolls? Depends on your personal ideology.

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

#30

Post by theoh »

c594815 wrote: post #18
jensen123 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 .

That's an oversimplification of the story in relation to architecture.

A lot of modernist architects have espoused socialist views, but someone like Mies van der Rohe also built some work for the Nazi regime. The modernist architect Philip Johnson was a notorious Nazi sympathizer.

There's an article here that starts to unpick the architecture/politics relationship in relation to one architect's work: http://archinect.com/features/article/4618/peter-eisenman-li...

Since architecture requires significant wealth and organization, it's rarely, if ever, something that comes out of anarchism. So statism or philanthropy is often behind it.

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