The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News • Hacker News Board

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#401

Post by toasterlovin » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

whiteopinions wrote: post #115

>Strict moderation I don't consider the moderation on this site to be strict at all? It's tone police more than it is content police. HN continually lets comments and statements go completely unquestioned, and in some cases actively supports view points, that are objectively wrong in the most vanilla fashion all because it was said in the correct manner.

Tone is important. Nobody was ever convinced by being screamed at. People who argue against tone policing are mostly just using that as a way to shut down their opponents.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#402

Post by Tiktaalik » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

Yep strict moderation is required for (quasi) anonymous internet discussion sites.

Strict moderation is why olde forums like Somethingawful don't have nazis, but weak/no moderation twitter is full of them.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#403

Post by new2628 » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

jsperson wrote: post #306

dredmorbius wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine how much better the experience of listening and engaging in discussions with those who are qualified as not simply smarter than you, but who have different lived experience, values, and/or models for ordering the Universe?

Your implication seems to be that we don't have that - I disagree. HN is full of folks with different backgrounds. One particular category of topics is moderated - politics. There's massive inclusion of different lived experiences etc. In other forums I've found political discussions to be particularly irrational. The topic is just so fundamentally emotional that folks lose objectivity. You can't argue with results.…

I agree 100% with what you say but have to point out that your last "even" is a small example of how politics creeps in. In short, what often happens is that statements that are highly opinion-based are presented as broadly-agreed-upon facts.

EDIT: to be clear, I don't think you did it intentionally, and it was a minor thing, I just found it amusing to spot it.

EDIT2: to be even clearer, I'm referring to the implied fact that WP commenters are better-informed than the other two groups (on which I don't have a strong opinion).

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#404

Post by Tiktaalik » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #242

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)…

Traditional forums are usually strictly moderated and are not toxic. (eg. Resetera, Somethingawful)

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#405

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #32

nailer wrote: post #22

dang / sctb: do you get alerts when we mention your usernames? You always seem to respond relatively quickly.

I wouldn't be surprised if they got a continuous feed of all comments. The volume is just about possible to keep up with.

[deleted]

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#406

Post by nickpsecurity » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #91

I’ve always thought HN is so relatively pleasant because of the investment it puts into quality moderation. But reading this profile really underscored how different things would be had two other people, of different temperaments and perspectives on life, been selected as mods. I imagined the mods to stereotypically be, at oldest, late-20s techies in SV. But it makes sense in retrospect one is in his mid-30s, and one…

Heck, raising kids might even have helped Dan get better at moderating. Both in terms of doing it and handling the mental burden. Seems like there's some overlap in skills like trying to understand them, giving guidance, having patience about the process, etc.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#407

Post by AcerbicZero » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

dhshahsndeisjwn wrote: post #363

cloakandswagger wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That paragraph is a smug, flowery dismissal of the kind of evidence-based discussion that happens on HN. It's passive aggressively accusing HN commenters of wrongthink and of abusing unreliable tools like "data" and "logic" to counter "humane arguments" (read: emotional arguments). It basically dismisses the role of data in debate by suggesting that it is malleable or selective--we've all probably encountered this ty…

No, specifically they say: > The most admired arguments are made with data, > but the origins, veracity, and malleability of those data > tend to be ancillary concerns. That's a concern I often share: "the data" can so often be a "winner's history".

The nice thing about having discussions based on fact is that if "the data" is bad, its just another avenue for discussion. That doesn't mean we have to re-hash everything from first principals, and it certainly doesn't mean that compelling rhetoric + poor data might "win", but it sure does help.

People can have a productive discussion on the veracity (origins/malleability are not good reasons to ignore data by themselves in my opinion) of the data, other data can be presented to support or contradict the original point, and in a perfect world perhaps both sides would come away a little more aware of an issue.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#408

Post by reificator » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

kls wrote: post #400

reificator wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm not even specifying a topic.

I'm saying there's benefit to moderating off topic discussions regardless of the nature of said content.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#409

Post by saagarjha » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

hnModsRDanger wrote: post #396

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…

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.

This hasn't been my experience at all. What was your "legitimate criticism"?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#410

Post by cowabungacode » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

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…

> In my opinion the strength of HN in this regard is that it is.... a "haven for alt-right",

Really? Do you really think that a strength of HN is that it is a haven for the alt-right? This is shocking and extremly scary to me. The alt-right wants me to die. Is this site a haven for those who want to kill off people like me? That's abhorrent. I agree that HN is a haven for the alt-right but I do not think that is a GOOD thing! From Wikipedia,

> The alt-right ... is... white supremacist, white nationalist, white separatist, anti-immigration and sometimes antisemitic movement based in the United States

I do not think that it is a strength of HN that it is a haven for the modern day Nazis of the world. I think it strictly devalues the site and reduces conversation quality here dramatically. Those people do not argue in good faith, they flag climate change articles so we cannot talk about good solutions to real problems facing all of us, and they also convince the moderators to ban discussion of Russia's cyberattacks here. The moderators cave their policies to white supremacists and hard-line rules that minimize the points given and comments written about Russian cyberattacks.

That HN is a "haven for [Nazis and racists]" is decidedly not a good thing.