The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News • Hacker News Board

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#251

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

rusk wrote: post #178

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…

> both a "sjw cesspool" and a "haven for alt-right" both and neither. Partisan discussions, or even any kind of bitching at all ... are outright discouraged. I often step out of line in this regard and don't always agree, but I'm also confident that folk on "the other side" face the same kind of treatment. Though frustrating at times, I respect that it keeps things clean and helps cut out a lot of nonsense, of which…

It's always interesting to see a light-grey thread at the bottom of a page that's full of lucid, not-overly-aggressive political discussion.

In one sense it's a shame when thoughtful, evidence-based discussion is discouraged for being off-topic. But I suspect that's ultimately what makes those discussions possible; they're happening between relatively small numbers of discussants, in a space that doesn't draw in people looking for political debates.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#252

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

rubidium wrote: post #148

ekianjo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strict moderation is the reason HN is the only reasonable discussion forum remaining on the internet Not at all. It's rather the community that makes it a reasonable discussion space. Most people here understand that this is not Reddit and that proper answers are needed when you interact with other members. Of course moderation is useful and necessary in certain cases, but it's certainly far from being the key fact…

No, it really does make a difference. I've got a close friend who's been involved in many discussion forums, both as user and mod. His experience is mods are the critical link that prevent the community from descending to ugly chaos. The community helps... but someone needs to be doing some policing to limit the effect of the bad actors or the community starts to get pissed off/wander off/degrade into pettiness.

> who's been involved in many discussion forums,

in many discussion forums... that are not HN. There is only one HN, so you can't make comparison with other communities out there.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#253

Post by raxxorrax » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:11 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…

While you might have a point, I don't see many examples where people advocating the political to speak "truth to power". What I see is "be mindful with controversial opinions that could affect corporate sensibilities" and I do believe many people share this point of view.

Who do you think are these unprivileged people you are speaking off anyway and what do you think would hinder them at participation?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#254

Post by pluma » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

lobotryas wrote: post #235

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…

Not all places need to support discussion of politics. If you want to discuss the intersection of tech and politics you have many options to go to without bringing that stuff here.

Everything is political.

HN generally bans explicitly political opinion pieces, articles with overt political statements and articles primarily covering current political affairs (e.g. articles about something a US politician said). But even what is or isn't "political" in this sense is again down to the unstated biases of the moderators (e.g. what if the US politician said something about a well-known tech company).

A lot of articles that make the cut tend to be overtly about economics, but those are still extremely political. Universal basic income is political, climate change is political, how companies treat their employees is political, the "sharing economy" is political.

HN isn't free of politics, HN is centrist (with a neo-liberal bias, i.e. anti-regulation, pro-market). And centrism isn't an ideology, it's merely a compromise relative to wherever the current Overton window is.

Saying you don't want to talk about politics riles people up because in order to think of something you talk about as "non-political" requires you to be considerably aloof and far removed from the real-world impacts.

And for completeness sake: yes, even saying "when a company makes an economical decision that negatively impacts people that's not political" is political because it presupposes a laissez-faire capitalist worldview where the Friedman doctrine is unquestioned.

(Hopefully we don't need to talk about why any pretenses of a "meritocracy" or "only hiring the best" is political as these specters should have been cast out of most tech forums at this point)

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#255

Post by icebraining » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:12 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…

I don't see that attitude in HN at all. There are those who wish to see fewer (or none) political discussions, but their wishes don't prevail. Hence the aforementioned "Detox Week", which didn't even last a week.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#256

Post by danso » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

julienreszka wrote: post #179

This apologetic article changes nothing. The moderation of hackernews should be independently audited for biased censorship.

Which independent authority do you suggest?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#257

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #139

ekianjo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt "2 moderators" would be able to do anything if half of the community was composed of trolls. The fact that trolls are very few in the first place, and not welcome by other members who flag them and downvote them to hell, make it possible for it to work even with a low level of moderation.

Making trolling less visible / viable practice is the work of moderators. Enough HN members are happy to feed the trolls (even if unwittingly) and encourage more without removing them.

> Making trolling less visible / viable practice is the work of moderators.

Downvoting, flagging works even when the mods are not around. I am pretty sure that a comment flagged too many times is greyed out and almost invisible (and that happens without mods).

Again, if we are to believe there are only 2 full time moderators on HN for the amount of comments going every single minute, it's virtually impossible to rely on mods alone for proper discussions: simple maths.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#258

Post by TACIXAT » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

The moderation here is amazing. Thanks to the mods!

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#259

Post by tomp » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #118

azangru wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

Could you clarify why you thought this? What evidence do you have that supports this? The big thread shows that the top comment agrees that 8chan should be left alone. [0] and the comment chain shows that there seems to be something like a significant minority against 8chan, but it doesn’t appear to be a prevailing majority. 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20610395

The current top comment. IIRC it was fluctuating wildly while it was on the front page. After it's gone, comments can get reshuffled, because some people might keep replying/reading/up&downvoting (arguably those with more of a "vested interest" - likely those that disagree with the original article)

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#260

Post by cesarb » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

soneil wrote: post #182

hef19898 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One great improvement of UI for HN, don't ask me how often I fat fingered before.

I fat-finger a lot, especially on mobile where these tiny little arrows are a challenge. And one thing I notice is that since both the arrows disappear, you're never quite sure if you did. You have to question your fat fingers yourself, and if you're unsure, Undo gives you the option to take a second shot. But you're never entirely sure.

> And one thing I notice is that since both the arrows disappear, you're never quite sure if you did. [...] But you're never entirely sure.

The undo link says "unvote" when you upvoted, and "undown" when you downvoted. And yeah, after every single click on one of these arrows, I check the undo link to make sure I clicked the right one.