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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

#41

Post by thesehands »

If online publications wanted genuine discourse under articles then I'm sure the die-hard commentators would pay a fee to engage in such, especially if the author were around to offer response. Seems this would provide enough of a barrier to stop _most_ "trolling", and self fund the moderation. If newspapers would stop using clickbait titles I'm sure they'd move the needle somewhat too.

They are however in the 'eyeball' game and the content quality reflects this lowest common denominator ethos.

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

#42

Post by m0nty »

vixen99 wrote: post #36
m0nty wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's you who has used the word 'all'. Replace all with some in your counter example and both are undoubtedly true. Appalling? I agree.

The use of the word "loser" (which has emotional connotations) is mostly what I object to here.

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

#43

Post by pessimizer »

vixen99 wrote: post #36
m0nty wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's you who has used the word 'all'. Replace all with some in your counter example and both are undoubtedly true. Appalling? I agree.

Replace "all" with "some," and every political grouping becomes lentil-munching sandal wearers, including Trump voters.

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

#44

Post by grey-area »

I think the problem with sites like the guardian is that they still haven't adjusted to the inversion of power between writer and reader that the Internet brought (the article hints at this but doesn't fully address it). When they still see the article (which is often rushed insignificant fluff) as primary, and comments as secondary, optional and in need of gardening by qualified moderators, they get the commenters they deserve.

Contrasting this with moderation and comments on HN and well run subreddits is instructive. Those sites aren't perfect but at least they recognise the value of comments, and that some commenters will know more about the story than anyone, they might even be involved in it as witnesses or protagonists, as opposed to journalists who typically know very little about a subject. In addition your readers can be the best moderators if you empower them and keep steering them with a light hand. The guardian lets readers vote up only and then does nothing with it.

Maybe it's time for a new kind of journalism without journalists or ads, with a focus on primary sources, and empowering interested communities to report and verify for other readers. It's unlikely to emerge from old media though.

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

#45

Post by lucozade »

elaus wrote: post #31
mahranch wrote: post #5

Only 70k comments a day? As a someone who has been a reddit default moderator for 6+ years (I help out in more than 1 default subreddit), I'd say they're still small time. It's so bad over on reddit that even with a fully active staff, we have to utilize bots to automate much of the work. Without those bots, it would be impossible to have a community at the sizes we're talking. We simply wouldn't exist. He overstates…

> […] I look at the average comment there and I can get a feel for what moderating there must be like. And I have to say, it looks like paradise compared to reddit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're seeing in the comment section of the Guardian is AFTER moderation has taken place – both longterm (blocking trolls) and short term (removing/blocking comments). So obviously it doesn't look as bad as what you're se…

The Guardian has just done an analysis on comments and they get approx 2% that are blocked or deleted. So it doesn't look like they're fighting back the hordes and you just can't see it.

And in the article, the chap says that removing the spammers and swivel-eyes is easy. What's hard is curating the discussion. If you read the comments on this article and on similar articles recently, this is the area that attracts the main criticism of the Guardian moderation.

My guess wrt Reddit is that it's a much more difficult job to remove the spammers and front-page optimisers. The curation of a sub-reddit, if it happens at all, is probably easier as there'll likely be little or no real need to be subtle about it.

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

#46

Post by dagw »

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 .

another interesting aspect is architecture. Leftists like brutalism and modernism, while right-wingers like traditional architecture,

On the other hand, preserving old traditional buildings tends to be a leftist cause, while wanting to bulldoze them and replace them with new modern buildings tends to be a right-wing cause.

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

#47

Post by lucozade »

grey-area wrote: post #44

I think the problem with sites like the guardian is that they still haven't adjusted to the inversion of power between writer and reader that the Internet brought (the article hints at this but doesn't fully address it). When they still see the article (which is often rushed insignificant fluff) as primary, and comments as secondary, optional and in need of gardening by qualified moderators, they get the commenters t…

I agree with you. My anecdotal opinion is that commentary works well where the article is intended to impart information. A lot of HN submissions are of this type because they're posted precisely because someone learnt something from them and often lead to extra information being imparted in the comments. It's true, to a lesser extent in Guardian articles that are simply reporting.

Where it doesn't work well, on HN or news sites, is where the article is intended to influence debate. Whether it's a monad swinging contest on HN or an analysis of the lighter side of Jeremy Corbyn, comments rarely seem to reduce the polarity.

I think this is more of an issue for news sites simply because there is less reporting and more influencing done, somewhat ironically.

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

#48

Post by megalodon »

sgift wrote: post #25
megalodon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm merely suggesting that people should diversify their media intake to (try to) eliminate bias. Most newspapers do have a political agenda. In Sweden newspapers often state their political affiliation, which I think is great. Looking at the Guardian's wiki page under "political alignment", they are considered centre-left. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian

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

#49

Post by megalodon »

spriggan3 wrote: post #28
megalodon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been thinking somewhere along the same lines, but eliminating bias is incredibly hard to do, even with machine learning. Hopefully we'll see some experimentation in this area here on HN.

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

#50

Post by tinco »

_yosefk wrote: post #38
tinco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Actually it's 3 examples, which I think is enough to show a bias towards one of two sides (c'mon, nobody chooses one side out of two 3 times in a row accidentally, and if he chose a side with equal probability for each example - yeah right - the result we got is a 1 in 8 event, so not a great support for that hypothesis), and as to "familiar to his target audience" - again, come on, his target audience will be famili…

> Actually it's 3 examples, which I think is enough to show a bias towards one of two sides (c'mon, nobody chooses one side out of two 3 times in a row accidentally, and if he chose a side with equal probability for each example - yeah right - the result we got is a 1 in 8 event, so not a great support for that hypothesis),

That is a straw man argument, as you can see nowhere I claim that he chose his examples randomly. Quite the opposite as you quote directly, I think he chose his example to speak to his target audience.

> again, come on, his target audience will be familiar with their fellow extremists' arguments just as much as it will be familiar with the other side's extremists.

Perhaps, but this is a writing style issue. Anyway sure, it's a valid point you could ask of the writer to always perfectly balance his examples between minority and majority viewpoints of his readership. I don't think the "come on" is warranted though, do you really feel it's that obvious that the author should consider this instead of considering for example the sting the nice black/white examples that he uses give?

As to what you think of your comment, I didn't ask what you thought about your comment. I asked whether you realized your argument was exaggerated. I didn't downvote your reply nor do I think a moderator should remove it. I was just curious as to why you would be artificially polarizing this discussion.

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