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Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

drewdevault.com

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Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#321

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

arkades wrote: post #318
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN and CNN are different mediums, use different designs, and have different limitations. As such I have different expectations of them. I'm starting to lose my patience with you. I think you are intentionally being obstuse and I don't appreciate it.

For what it’s worth: to the extent that you keep answering “but you refuse to apply your own logic to (any other medium, without reason as to why)”, I think a lot of people in this thread believe that -you’re- not debating in good faith. You can only handwave an argument away with “but different medium” so many times without explaining how a change in medium changes the relevant logic.

I really don't understand why it's so hard to understand why there's a difference between the mediums. I've made it pretty clear.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#322

Post by j45 »

wvenable wrote: post #144
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?

Huge flame wars get a lot of upvotes and lots of comments -- but it's essentially the forum equivalent of candy. If you want your forum to have some nutritional value than you can't let the candy topics run rampant no matter how much people seem to want them.

I like HN because it is more mature and there's lots of places for people to have fun like that.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#323

Post by tptacek »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #321
arkades wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it’s worth: to the extent that you keep answering “but you refuse to apply your own logic to (any other medium, without reason as to why)”, I think a lot of people in this thread believe that -you’re- not debating in good faith. You can only handwave an argument away with “but different medium” so many times without explaining how a change in medium changes the relevant logic.

I really don't understand why it's so hard to understand why there's a difference between the mediums. I've made it pretty clear.

I think it's clear to everyone how the mediums are different. What's not clear is how subjective decisions CNN makes about what to air are acceptable, but subjective decisions HN makes about what to allow on the front page aren't.

What's especially weird about this argument is that the US media market is in fact in the middle of a giant debate about how acceptable CNN and Fox News's editorial decisions are. It's not like it's a reach to get from moderation to CNN's editorial decisions; it's a pretty obvious comparison.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#324

Post by tomkat0789 »

abandonliberty wrote: post #138
flavio81 wrote: post #78

In this thread, some people are complaining of moderators downvoting (lowering the rank) of some submissions over others; and at least one person says "let the readers decide". I think that if I wanted a forum/news site where "the readers decide" and ONLY the readers decide, i'd go to Reddit. No thanks, i prefer HN due to the behind-the-scenes 'curation' or choice of content, which so far usually gives very interesti…

Luckily the community largely self-moderates and comments are generally very high value. At the moment we don't appear to have a significant troll problem. Reddit was like this almost 10 years ago. This is the bliss of obscurity. We should hold a wake for Reddit 2010. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=reddit,h... (though I doubt people coming to this site actually google it) Supposedly if you find t…

The problem with obscurity is I don't know where to find another HN when it goes the way of Slashdot! How do people find small unique sites like this?

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#325

Post by Mz »

tptacek wrote: post #286
anigbrowl wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many women do you have on the mod team, for perspective? I have my doubts about how welcoming HN is for different demographics, and while the grandparent poster is handwaving things with a mental mockup as you say, absent transparency on moderation policies many people inevitably feel the same way about the moderation. I mean, at present you have a bunch of secret rules to make everything run better. That works O…

For what it's worth, I largely cosign this critique of how HN is moderated. I think there's merit to the suggestion that snarking about how unwelcoming HN is to industry minorities is counterproductive. But I don't think HN's institutional commitment to being more welcoming to industry minorities is exactly pellucid.

FWIW, I don't cosign this critique.

Personally, I don't feel any need to know how many women are on the moderating staff. That question has not ever crossed my mind as an issue for me, personally, as a woman posting here.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#326

Post by belorn »

matt4077 wrote: post #194
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?

HN's readership is a bit less progressive than what you'd expect from the age/education demographics–or at least than what I'd expect. See, for example, this very article calling out the moderation of a submission on anti-white racism in the restaurant industry, while there are probably dozens of stories buried each week exploring racism or sexism on the tech sector. Yes, some of those do make it to the front page. B…

Lets describe a example of moderation by dang.

For an article a about work and unrelated to sexism, gender or racism, a commenter wrote out of the blue that all white men live privileged and easy lives. A second person replied and disagreed, arguing that some men don't have everything perfect and easy from the point of birth to death. The reply got moderated for causing a flame war, with third-party people asking dang why he targeted the dissenting view and not the original comment.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#327

Post by tptacek »

Mz wrote: post #325
tptacek wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I largely cosign this critique of how HN is moderated. I think there's merit to the suggestion that snarking about how unwelcoming HN is to industry minorities is counterproductive. But I don't think HN's institutional commitment to being more welcoming to industry minorities is exactly pellucid.

FWIW, I don't cosign this critique. Personally, I don't feel any need to know how many women are on the moderating staff. That question has not ever crossed my mind as an issue for me, personally, as a woman posting here.

Like 'anigbrowl, I simply think it's worth considering the extent to which the moderating staff do or do not personally experience the hostility this place can exhibit to industry minorities.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#328

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

tptacek wrote: post #323
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand why it's so hard to understand why there's a difference between the mediums. I've made it pretty clear.

I think it's clear to everyone how the mediums are different. What's not clear is how subjective decisions CNN makes about what to air are acceptable, but subjective decisions HN makes about what to allow on the front page aren't. What's especially weird about this argument is that the US media market is in fact in the middle of a giant debate about how acceptable CNN and Fox News's editorial decisions are. It's not…

Thank you, I understand where you're coming from now. Let me clarify.

The difference is because CNN makes a subjective editorial decision about what to air. Their content is curated and prepared by paid staff. The success of CNN is entirely built on the talent and hard work of these people. There's a whole side discussion about the ethical responsibilities of CNN we can have, but let's set that aside and just distinguish them from HN.

HN's success is built on its community. The overwhelming majority of submissions are user contributions - far less than 1 in 1000 HN posts are written by the mods, and they're generally meta posts. HN owes the success of its content to the community, and such I feel that they're morally obligated to treat that community with a certain level of respect. Part of that is everything I've argued for today - well-defined rules that are enforced equally and transparent moderation.

I'm not invested in CNN. I haven't participated in the formation or success of their "community", if you could even call it that. But I, and many others, have participated in the success of Hacker News by submitting articles, Show HNs, etc - and participating in discussions on the site. HN would be nothing without the community that participates in it, and frankly I think YCombinator's core business itself would be measurably worse off without HN.

Since the HN community is responsible for HN's success, I say we can call for transparent moderation.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#329

Post by iza »

specialist wrote: post #309
tptacek wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. I've been doing it for something close to a decade now --- and, in fact, now have it pretty close to automated. I programmatically follow the people who write the worst racist and misogynistic and homophobic crap on this site. This is a problem I've studied, and one I think you know I've spent real, measurable, expensive time on here. I don't think you can dismiss what I'm saying so easily. Individual…

I'd rather just follow other users. See HN as you see it. Piggyback off your good taste, curation. A la the multireddit feature, if I could combine the page views & upvotes, and filter out the flags & downvotes, of you and everyone you recommend in your profile, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't see the trolls, flamewars. I used to moderate forums. Major chore. The notion of just following people you like, trust would remov…

Have you heard of Hubski? It works exactly as you described.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#330

Post by Mz »

tptacek wrote: post #327
Mz wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I don't cosign this critique. Personally, I don't feel any need to know how many women are on the moderating staff. That question has not ever crossed my mind as an issue for me, personally, as a woman posting here.

Like 'anigbrowl, I simply think it's worth considering the extent to which the moderating staff do or do not personally experience the hostility this place can exhibit to industry minorities.

Paul Graham is originally from the UK. I believe Dan Gackle is Canadian in origin. Patio11 is a white American male living in Japan. Jacquesm is Dutch. Tokenadult has an Asian wife and has lived in Asia.

My impression is that the forum is fairly multicultural. It is not a monolith of white American males/white American male culture.

I am much more concerned with feeling heard than with whether or not they have firsthand experiences like mine. I once wrote the mods and made my case for why something should be deleted as I felt it was actively putting a young woman in real danger. They didn't initially see it, but they did listen and ultimately redacted the information that concerned me.

I think if I have a real problem, they will listen. This is better in my mind than having been born with the same bits between their legs that I happen to have been born with.

I don't pretend to speak for all minorities. But my understanding is that both you and anigbrowl are white males. So I thought I would chime in just so the topic isn't being addressed solely by the demographic that you two express concerns about dominating the mod staff.

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