"Censorship by moderators" How about: "Curation by moderators"
"Censorship by Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China"
How about:
"Curation by Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China"
Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
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Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#22Article doesn’t mention what I believe is one mod tool: shadow banning accounts based on IP. I had a bunch of accounts get shadowbanned for no evident reason and after a while I deduced it was based on using the account from a particular cafe’s WiFi. I just created this account and if I go use it from that place I will be banned again by some automated process.
Banning by IP is so commonplace that it shouldn't need to be mentioned.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#23Another HN tool moderators use that isn't mentioned in the post is the second-chance pool, where moderators will rescue a post which did not receive many upvotes and give it placement on the front page for a bit of time.
Where is this documented? Not trying to be snippy - I have no idea what powers the moderators have in this realm. Maybe HN could benefit from some lobste.rs-esque moderation transparency.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#24Article doesn’t mention what I believe is one mod tool: shadow banning accounts based on IP. I had a bunch of accounts get shadowbanned for no evident reason and after a while I deduced it was based on using the account from a particular cafe’s WiFi. I just created this account and if I go use it from that place I will be banned again by some automated process.
Why did you have so many accounts in the first place? How many is "a bunch"?
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Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've long come to accept that HN is a curated source, the voting is a kind of false-democracy to make it appear more democratic than it is. Yes, likely >90% of the site is done through voting, but a significant amount of pruning and bumping clearly also occurs.
Purpose of HN is ultimately agitprop for YC. It makes sense that curation of posts occurs--this only confuses people that buy too much into the "hacker" ethos.
This is silly.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#26Article doesn’t mention what I believe is one mod tool: shadow banning accounts based on IP. I had a bunch of accounts get shadowbanned for no evident reason and after a while I deduced it was based on using the account from a particular cafe’s WiFi. I just created this account and if I go use it from that place I will be banned again by some automated process.
> I had a bunch of accounts Maybe that is the problem.
He said he registered them from Public Wifi. So anyone registering first account on HN from said cafee will be banned?
Why are you so surprised he might have multiple accounts? You really have one email account? How about work-related email? Company-facing related email? If anything, its actually good he has multiple accounts and stuff related to / from his company account he is posting from company, and private is private.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#27"Censorship by moderators" How about: "Curation by moderators"
"Censorship by Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China" How about: "Curation by Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China"
HN is not a government or a political party, it's a privately run link aggregator.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#28Another HN tool moderators use that isn't mentioned in the post is the second-chance pool, where moderators will rescue a post which did not receive many upvotes and give it placement on the front page for a bit of time.
Where is this documented? Not trying to be snippy - I have no idea what powers the moderators have in this realm. Maybe HN could benefit from some lobste.rs-esque moderation transparency.
dang made a full writeup here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380
I agree it (along with other moderation behaviors described in the article) should be documented more explicitly in the guidelines/FAQ
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a democracy at all. User votes are one signal the site uses among many. It's been like that since day one.
Sure... it's still mostly about votes right? "Popular things go to the top" is a pretty good first approximation of the algorithm. You have things getting flagged to death for generating bad conversation/flamewars (kinda like parents telling kids to stop playing rough since people are getting hurt). There's the hiring posts. At least to me, it's always felt like moderation is happening at the margins.
Votes are a powerful signal here because they're the easiest signal to automate. That leads people to believe their HN votes are more sacred than they are. There has never been a point in the history of the site where it's ever been unclear that the site is ultimately run by the mods.
People complaining now should find someone who's been on here for a long time and ask what it was like under Paul Graham. Hint: not better.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#30Moderators should in no way be able to bury posts or even nudge them downwards. This is a cowardly way to try to control discussion. If it isn't explicitly against the site rules, let the readers decide.
If you let the readers decide, you'd have HN with the front page full of the "news" about tech scene Kardashians.