The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News • Hacker News Board

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#241

Post by kaitai » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #94

vinceguidry wrote: post #82

> The site’s now characteristic tone of performative erudition—hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative—often masks a deeper recklessness. I recently started contributing on another online community, a Slack, and I've found the rhetorical habits I've unwittingly cultivated creating a weird sort of mood. Nothing I'm saying is wrong , but HN has managed to make me somewhat oblivious to tone. It's exactly…

I may be misinterpreting what you're saying, but just in case: the critique isn't about "style", as in being too direct or offensive or anything like that. It's about the value system, and about how arguments are evaluated. Case in point: a few days ago an article about India/Kashmir shortly made the front page ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20612461 ) The ensuing discussion is entirely obsessed with the lega…

I have to say I love the meta-nature of this comment. Truly. I feel that the comment in the article about "performative erudition" does point to something -- something that I certainly do on HN!! -- that you are also doing in this comment while you say that the sentence in the article is about something else. You are not wrong about your point (HN sure does love its superficial legalism and uber-rationality) but the way you've said it is exactly the HN style!

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#242

Post by lucb1e » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

Has anyone ever seen an online community (with more than a handful of users) that focuses on more than cute puppy pictures and that is not described as "toxic" by "critics"? I'd say that HN does a great job at avoiding that. The article is titled "moderating hacker news" but fails to describe just how good a job the moderators and owners are doing. The moderators for moderation, and the owners for (as I perceive it) giving the moderators the freedom to try things that are best for the community (such as the politics-free experiment).

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#243

Post by radcon » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

romaaeterna wrote: post #164

Hacker News is a well-moderated community, but it's illustrative to see where Hacker News fails at moderation. While Hacker News is great at protecting the community from disruptive individuals, it tends to fall down when protecting unpopular individuals against the community turned mob. I support Hacker News moderating itself however it chooses. However, if we are looking at it as a moderation model for large, open,…

> Hacker News moderation is not appealable, not auditable, does not have bright line rules, and there are no due process rights. It simply does not respect individual rights.

Exactly. HN takes the tyrannical approach to moderation: We're right and you're wrong. If you disagree, too bad.

The mob is happy to clean up any wrongthink the moderators happen to miss.

> this moderation method succeeds for Hacker News

I think that's a pretty generous statement. The quality of discussions around here has declined substantially over the past few years. In many ways it's even worse than Reddit.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#244

Post by raldi » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

danaos wrote: post #232

> In April, when a story about Katie Bouman, an M.I.T. researcher who helped develop a technology that captured the first photo of a black hole, rose to the front page, users combed through her code on GitHub in an effort to undermine the weight of her contributions. Hmm. I guess citation needed?

This seems to have been either a complete, sensationalistic fabrication, or at best, a totally negligent misread.

See for yourself:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632086

The thread began, "If Katie was a man do you think people would be going through git histories and their published papers trying to determine if she is being over-credited for her achievements?"

And it's not referring to others on HN; as the replies make clear, it's about people elsewhere.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#245

Post by batmenace » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

Sukotto wrote: post #51

I've been enjoying the "Against the Rules" podcast [1] hosted by Michael Lewis [2]. It's related to moderation so I'll post it here. The show is series of stories/reports on the work of refereeing fairness in different parts of life. With views into how those referees are changing, and in some cases, outright disappearing. Fascinating stuff from an author who really knows how to tell an engaging story about a potenti…

AtR is a really good podcast, I agree. Lewis is great at writing/ presenting in an engaging manner. Listening to the podcasts felt to me like listening to short audio books of his. Who knows if moderation in the way he analyses it will rebound again in the future, one can only hope...

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#246

Post by candu » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

azangru wrote: post #108

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #68

This article does seem to get at the essence of HN, appreciative of dang and sctb's humanity while not ignoring the problems. Personally, I would actually consider it an excellent demonstration of the fallibility of one of HN's favourite tropes, Gell-Mann amnesia. If there's one critique that I believe is paramount it's that HN has, due to its readership, an ethical obligation that goes beyond making discussions all…

> HN's prevailing attitude (e.g. cloudflare-shouldnt-ban- ). Funny, I thought HN's prevailing attitude in the case of the recent ban of 8chan was, hell yeah, good riddance to those reprehensible twats. (Which, personally, annoyed me, because I believe that even the deplored should have a space for communication.)

I've seen both opinions, and many more nuanced variants thereof, argued in a well-reasoned, persuasive manner here on HN.

Adding my voice to the "good riddance" side of the aisle: thanks to what freedom of speech, association, etc. actually mean in the legal / constitutional context, said twats are guaranteed a space for communication - the real world! They can stand on a corner or picket their local City Hall and spout all the hateful nonsense they want.

(They can't, however, verbally assault bus drivers / police officers, or yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or directly incite violence, or disturb the peace at all hours of the night, or needlessly interrupt judicial / civil proceedings, or...point being: even in the US, the exercise of free speech comes with limits and responsibilities.)

Like publicans of yore banning rowdy drunks from the premises (which itself came with political / legal overtones; see https://www.amazon.ca/America-Walks-into-Bar-Speakeasies/dp/...), many owners of online spaces are deciding - as is well within their rights as owners of a private space - to ban users and groups who disproportionately degrade the experience for all others.

(This is my general surface-level opinion, without getting into discussions like https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/rnhzlo around the amplification of extreme voices by short-sighted metrics optimization, or debates on whether providing space for hateful voices effectively denies free speech to the targets of their hate, or explorations of the tradeoffs different open, democratic societies have made around hate speech.)

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#247

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #201

dunkelheit wrote: post #147

I guess it is a perfect opportunity to thank dang and sctb for their unobtrusive and friendly moderation efforts. The article itself was a bit disappointing because it focused on political issues. In my opinion the strength of HN in this regard is that it is both a "sjw cesspool" and a "haven for alt-right", as evidenced by the fact that a comment on a controversial topic can easily float near zero points while rakin…

This is actually my sole complaint with HN. I love the community and I understand where the moderators are coming from, but I feel that it's important to point out that the position of "keep politics out of $X" is the purest expression of privilege, and in general is an attitude that embraces the status quo, no matter how horrifying it might be for the unprivileged. I'm not saying HN should allow ALL political discus…

Question: who does a policy of "no political discussion" most favour?

The empowered, or the disempowered?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#248

Post by tomp » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #201

dunkelheit wrote: post #147

I guess it is a perfect opportunity to thank dang and sctb for their unobtrusive and friendly moderation efforts. The article itself was a bit disappointing because it focused on political issues. In my opinion the strength of HN in this regard is that it is both a "sjw cesspool" and a "haven for alt-right", as evidenced by the fact that a comment on a controversial topic can easily float near zero points while rakin…

This is actually my sole complaint with HN. I love the community and I understand where the moderators are coming from, but I feel that it's important to point out that the position of "keep politics out of $X" is the purest expression of privilege, and in general is an attitude that embraces the status quo, no matter how horrifying it might be for the unprivileged. I'm not saying HN should allow ALL political discus…

The idea isn't that political discussions are unwelcome, or worthless... Rather, it's that people (and comments) are much more emotional, knee-jerk, irrational, etc. - there is barely any actual discussion going on, it's mostly name-calling, strawman arguments or moral/value discussion that basically amount to "I'm good; you're evil" (e.g. both sides of pro-life vs pro-choice debate).

AFAIK noone has figured out how to have a substantial political discussion, at scale. Until that problem is solved, it makes sense to just tune it out a bit.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#249

Post by FussyZeus » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #231

FussyZeus wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually my sole complaint with HN. I love the community and I understand where the moderators are coming from, but I feel that it's important to point out that the position of "keep politics out of $X" is the purest expression of privilege, and in general is an attitude that embraces the status quo, no matter how horrifying it might be for the unprivileged. I'm not saying HN should allow ALL political discus…

Something can be both an expression of privilege and a very good idea. Example: The advice to get at least 8 hours of sleep at a regular time each night. This reflects: - the economic privilege of not needing to do irregular shift work - not having a chronic disease which interrupts sleep - not being a parent - having a regular place to sleep at all. However, it is still a good idea for one’s physical and mental heal…

Well, as I said, it shouldn't be ALWAYS allowed, otherwise you have that sect of people who bring up the politics inherent in anything, and while it's true and important, it's not what HN is about or should be about.

BUT, and this is a big but here, there are a small number of discussions on HN where it can be argued that the politics involved in an issue are more important than the technology. Or, that the technology involved is actively shaping the politics related to it. Or, that the politics of those building the technology are informing the technology. And so on.

And I feel like the attitude here is one mirrored strongly in the tech industry at large, that somehow by not discussing it openly, we avoid the stains and the ugly realities of the situations we're involved in, and I'm sorry but that's just not true. Simply refusing to discuss the political angles of what we all do doesn't mean we're above it or beyond it, we're simply ignoring it, and ignoring politics can have catastrophic consequences.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#250

Post by nkurz » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

thisabled wrote: post #157

scoot_718 wrote: post #97

Since account creation was disabled, I'm sure it's the easiest moderation job going.

I always make a fresh new throwaway account here every time I make a post, and,so, by this post you can deduce yourself. This is a zero-minute account, as all my accounts are. You're welcome.

I wish you wouldn't do that, as I think it's destructive to the community. Certainly things aren't perfect here, but certainly they could become worse. Violating the (difficult to enforce) rule that one maintain an "identity that others can relate to" contributes to making things worse.