No mention of perma bans of specific users? Michael O. Church comes to mind.
The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
391–400 of 812 posts
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#392Huge thanks to dang and sctb! I really appreciate your work. I feel like it is working, FWIW.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#393Discussion in todays world is highly over rated. There are people who build hospitals and there are people who stand around talking about who should build hospitals. The former group in any population in any country is very small. The latter group is very large and thanks to the current architecture of the internet have gotten so over amplified that they think they actually matter. Their resumes don't have any actual…
The internet selects for these low info, useless discussions because outrage is profitable. The longer you rant on facebook/twitter, the longer you are on the site looking at ads.
Most problems in the world require a substantial technical background to fully appreciate well enough to have a relevant opinion, but people blindly comment anyway because they better understand the outrage on the internet than the actual real world issue.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#394Since 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.
This is actually something the site guidelines ask you not to do. Would you mind reviewing them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
HN is a community. It's totally fine not to use your real name, but users do need some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#395> Gackle is drawn to healing workshops; Bell, to Indian philosophy. They seem, at times, to be applying old, humanist techniques to a culture obsessed with the future. I wouldn't have guessed that. What's next though is even more interesting: > “Something that’s deeply interesting, I think, to both of us,” Gackle said, “is the way in which one can arrive at a nonviolent reaction to somebody by having greater awarenes…
This also caught my eye and it would be something I'd like to read about and discuss here too!
I was taught a metaphysical law (a psychological heuristic, if you prefer) called "the Mirror Principle" (it has other names), to wit: When someone has some behaviour or quality that irritates or upsets you, you will often find that you have that behaviour or quality yourself but are unaware of it. Becoming aware of it helps to "move your energy" on the underlying issue or tension.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#396I 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…
Unobtrusive? Try having a legitimate criticism of Apple. Odds are it gets flagged.
I don't mean to limit it to Apple, the mods have a heavy hand.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't know sctb, but I have had run-ins with dang on multiple occasions where he asked me to stop arguing when I felt I wasn't being hostile. Nonetheless, it's always in a very moderate tone of doing his job, rather than trying to express power, and I respect that. (Nor am I implying that I didn't take the arguments too far, in some cases I did) The real proof that they do their job though is that I can still occasio…
Same here. Dang has sent me such warnings before and it's always with such politeness that you end up feeling like an uneducated fool. HN has some of the best moderation that I have seen in a while. I have been a moderator for a large website in early 2000's and I can only admire them. This is no easy task.
I was also once called out by dang. He did it so respectingly and understandingly that it made a change for me. This was much better for my reflection about what was wrong about my behaviour than if I had been moderated more heavihandidly. I don't understand the amount of attention and patience that is necessary for it, but it makes a difference.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is a side effect of self-moderation. By making everyone in the community (over a certain threshold of participation) a mini-mod you turn rules enforcement into a popularity contest. Valid, interesting, yet unpopular points get suppressed. Rules violations that are popular get ignored, and sometimes even lauded. There is no reason, based on the HN guidelines, that the referenced post should have been down…
Yet, it happens all the time. For this example, the most likely explanation is the down-voters read the first two words and wrongly concluded that the remaining 1000 were going to be a racist rant. Within milliseconds they made the decision to downvote and move on. This "drive by down-voting" happens regularly here. I've had comments downvoted within seconds of posting--clearly the voters could not have had time to r…
>To test this, sometimes I'll write something where the first sentence is provocative, but the rest is (I hope) a solid, nuanced argument. Usually it's at -1 or -2 within a minute, and then over the next few hours slowly crawls back up to +2 or +3 as people actually read it.
I cannot but confirm this behaviour.
Also I noticed that (my guess is that there is some form of subliminal self-defense reflex by some categories) there are a few themes (not political, not social) that seem to attract downvotes.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#399Shout out to dang! You're doing a great job! Thank you! Strict moderation is the reason HN is the only reasonable discussion forum remaining on the internet. I wish good moderation was a skill that more people learned - would you ever be interested in writing a guide or teaching a class on moderation?
This. I've been put in the corner by dang more than once, and I like to think that it made me a more considerate commenter-on-the-internet. Maybe even a more considerate person. Thanks! Also, I think that it's pretty special that the vast majority of the comments on this article is people disagreeing about what HN's prevalent opinion is. It's easy to have all kinds of opinions when you don't moderate (eg 8chan), but…
> I've been put in the corner by dang
Same. Thanks, dang. I deeply appreciate your work here.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
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; No. Thoughtful, evidence-based discussion should never be discouraged or deemed off-topic - no matter how sensitive the topic. ( People reading this, even 10-15 years on, might find the mores of this age whimsical, at best. ) The only reason o…
> Thoughtful, evidence-based discussion should never be discouraged or deemed off-topic - no matter how sensitive the topic. Off-topic has nothing to do with the sensitivity of the topic or the current social mores. It has to do with not being on topic.
Not to mention, it always becomes a dumpster fire. It is going to devolve because too much emotional baggage comes in with it, I am guilty of it, and every reader on HN is guilty of it. There are plenty of other outlets to vent ones political frustrations. It just poisons the pool here and is better left out. If someone really needs that outlet, Facebook is just a click away.
It is near impossible for a group to have a rational discussion about politics or religion. So it is better to just avoid the topic on a forum that values, pleasantry and support of one another as core values.