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Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

drewdevault.com

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Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#251

Post by dang »

avip wrote: post #240
andrewguenther wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found moderation on HN to be a bit heavy handed recently. Specifically when it comes to the issue of sexism in SV. No matter the opinion, posts on this seem to get removed shortly after reaching the front page. Question for the mods: Why? It doesn't appear to be a bias towards either side. Is the perception just that people are tied of hearing about it? Why not let the users decide that?

Great. Let's keep this place technical. How is "sexism in SV" of any interest to a global tech-focused community?

It's obviously of interest and obviously not limited to SV. The issue isn't whether it's off-topic for HN (it isn't), it's can we stick to substantive discussion about real things and avoid flamewar and repetition.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#252

Post by dang »

enraged_camel wrote: post #244
rukuu001 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the oft-quoted HN submission guidelines, another answer to your question is that women are usually the ones affected by sexism, and women read HN (no, really).

It's another example of women being sidelined. Most HN readers are male, and selfishly flag/downvote articles/comments about sexism because they want to read about the latest JavaScript framework instead.

That's not a helpful ingredient to pour into the well. You're basically just repeating a mental mock-up you have, not backed by data, only snark. Anyone who looks sincerely and closely will see how much more complex the situation is.

Moreover, there's evidence that repeating such generalizations—even though you intend them critically—makes the environment less welcoming and poisons it further for the equality you'd presumably like to see.

When you do this, you (i.e. we—we nearly all do it) are valuing the rush of morally posturing above our peers more than the cause we care about. If we're going to actually make HN be the welcoming place we want it to be, we'll have to do something about this.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#254

Post by megaman22 »

dragandj wrote: post #30
vormalpg wrote: post #9

Moderators 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.

Been there, done that. I got so sick of flag/hiding the latest Uber nonstory for a while.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#255

Post by tptacek »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #224
tptacek wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, the published Arc/HN code is rapidly approaching a full decade out of date.

When you get the design right, there's no need to change it. :) Jokes aside, I refuse to let Arc die. There were genuinely good ideas embedded in it, amidst the rough edges. People just never forced themselves to use it. It's like if Vim was invented but had no documentation, so no one ever realized it's powerful if you embrace it. But yeah, I imagine my version will have a different name and a shiny website. Being a…

I think I'm just saying that I'm not sure you can conclude they don't have a real database backend now from the news.arc code.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#256

Post by tptacek »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #245
tptacek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a longer comment, originally, but cut it back to the single sentence when I realized that by dignifying the argument I was only lending your tossed-off slur more credibility. HN is not moderated so as to be agitprop for YC. Nobody who's talked to Dan for more than a couple minutes, or watched this site discuss the SFBA tech industry, could believe that. The difference between the site post-Dan and pre-Dan ---…

Rank penalization is alive and well in the dang era, I assure you. It's variously applied to my entire account, and I was penalized so heavily at one point that I appeared below every gray comment. Lately, it seems to oscillate with no rhyme or reason. > Yes, your account has a penalty that accounts get when they post too many low-quality comments--specifically ones that are uncivil and/or unsubstantive and/or tediou…

I don't know why you're using my comment as a venue to litigate penalties applied to your account. The point here isn't "people like 'jsmthrowaway get penalized". They do. The point is "moderation is far more coherent and transparent now than it was in some supposed 'good old days'", when you could be shadowbanned simply for irritating Paul Graham.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#257

Post by jsmthrowaway »

tptacek wrote: post #256
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rank penalization is alive and well in the dang era, I assure you. It's variously applied to my entire account, and I was penalized so heavily at one point that I appeared below every gray comment. Lately, it seems to oscillate with no rhyme or reason. > Yes, your account has a penalty that accounts get when they post too many low-quality comments--specifically ones that are uncivil and/or unsubstantive and/or tediou…

I don't know why you're using my comment as a venue to litigate penalties applied to your account. The point here isn't "people like 'jsmthrowaway get penalized". They do. The point is "moderation is far more coherent and transparent now than it was in some supposed 'good old days'", when you could be shadowbanned simply for irritating Paul Graham.

And your point is wrong. You seemed to claim that in the dang era rank penalization is a thing of the past. You seem to claim that unsubstantive comments will no longer get you penalized. You are claiming that these decisions are more transparent and less arbitrary than under pg. All three are completely false, but you're just not subjected to them. I was not informed that I had been quietly penalized in any way until I noticed something was amiss, because the fact that that facility even exists is not common knowledge. Sir_Cmpwn didn't even list it in his moderator tools.

The entire second paragraph of the comment to which I replied is wrong. Your followup (which ascribes motive to me, something I note you've gone after others for doing in this thread) is also wrong. I'm not litigating anything. I'm pointing out that you're wrong. You're also forgiven for not being aware of this, given your typical comment quality and status.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#258

Post by feelin_googley »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #76
aaron-lebo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN's cool but it's just one forum among a million others. The moderation is good though sometimes arbitrary. That's a lot easier for users to accept when they know why they are getting positively/negatively moderated, which is a good reason for more openness. But at the end of the day it's a forum, the moderators have the final say, that's the contract you agree to in using it.

If Dan and Scott were kings, they would be fucking epic. Best monarchs ever. It's hard to think of anyone who cares more about fairness, but clever enough to decide for themselves. And they're usually right. I think I can count on one hand the number of mistakes they've made that even remotely mattered. And from a strategic standpoint, that number is effectively zero. There are probably a bunch of people behind the s…

https://github.com/sctb/woe

Indeed this is cool.

To compile on BSD, I used

   gcc -static -std=c89 -Wall -pedantic -o woe woe.c -lm

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#259

Post by brad_chad »

matt4077 wrote: post #206
bradleyjg wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The users are deciding. We are flagging these stories because we don't see the value in endless flamewars over the same subject. If you can't get enough of debates about sexism in SV there are lots of other places on the internet for that.

I understand how that is the right policy for HN. But I'm wondering if you consider it possible that you're in a position where you have a responsibility to sometimes surface these topics on HN? After all, for some of these topics it's exactly the people that won't go looking for them at other places on the internet where they may still make a difference. To use an example that's slightly less controversial: I think…

I disagree. Most of the flagged topics are already being shoved in tech peoples' faces through Reddit, mainstream/tech news, their workplace and their social network (that is most likely liberal). Hacker News is a sort of safe space away from those topics. They are fully aware of the topics and choose to not participate in them.

edit: not sure why this is getting downvotes when it's a direct counterargument/response to the parent

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#260

Post by sillysaurus3 »

tptacek wrote: post #255
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you get the design right, there's no need to change it. :) Jokes aside, I refuse to let Arc die. There were genuinely good ideas embedded in it, amidst the rough edges. People just never forced themselves to use it. It's like if Vim was invented but had no documentation, so no one ever realized it's powerful if you embrace it. But yeah, I imagine my version will have a different name and a shiny website. Being a…

I think I'm just saying that I'm not sure you can conclude they don't have a real database backend now from the news.arc code.

Ah, yeah. (It's odd that Arc went closed-source but kept improving. It's maybe one of the most important custom languages in the industry, relative to HN's impact on the world.)
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