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The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

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Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#501

Post by fzeroracer »

jlawson wrote: post #81
onion2k wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason people were trawling through her Github contributions and comparing them to other members of the team she worked with, and then posting about lines of code as if that's a measure of the value of someone's contribution to a project, was absolutely to undermine her work and show that she wasn't deserving of credit (despite the fact she was repeatedly quoted saying it wasn't all her and that it was a team eff…

She was deserving of credit. She did great work, and so did dozens (hundreds?) of others on that project. She wasn't deserving of the level of credit that the media gave her when they cast her as the star, visionary, and quasi-leader of the whole enterprise. Nobody was ever against Katie. They were against the way the media handled the story - by slanting the story to advance a political agenda that had nothing to do…

'Nobody was ever against Katie' is a bold claim not at all backed up by the thread or the harassment she received which was addressed by her colleagues.

It seems like rather than own up to the fact that yes there were people that were remarkably awful to her and attempting to downplay her contributions it's easier to just blame the media.

It's frankly disgusting.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#502

Post by dang »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #500
mises wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd approach it from a different point of view (Cloudflare can choose with whom it does business), but still got the same general idea. Interestingly enough, some of the highest-voted posts aren't always the "prevailing opinion" - some times. Lots of comments get ranked highly because others recognize they are cogent and support them. They may disagree, and so comment, but might still vote in favor if the argument is…

Hacker News doesn't simply arrange comments by the number of upvotes they receive, it also considers the karma of the commenters and the freshness of the comments. Also, when submissions aged and comments settled, the current top comment would always get a lot of upvotes due to its position, and lock them "in place" by the strong positive feedback. So I doubt if reading the top comments is a very objective method for…

> it also considers the karma of the commenters

Karma doesn't affect ranking on HN. This comes up often enough that I wonder where the idea came from. Do other forums work this way?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#503

Post by cc81 »

cowabungacode wrote: post #418
1000units wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "alt-right" is mostly a boogieman for talking heads. One of my personal hobbies is hanging out in politically extreme internet communities (of both polarities) and arguing with people. Groups labeled "white-supremacist" rarely even contain a large number of white people.

> The "alt-right" is mostly a boogieman for talking heads. No, it's not. The alt-right uses anonymous web boards like this one (but not HN to my knowledge) to coordinate and celebrate mass shootings that are directly admitted to be race-focused and white-supremacist-led. (Edit: The alt-right does use HN to spread hate and their "ideology", but I have not seen direct specific calls to violence here) > Groups labeled "…

> No, it's not. The alt-right uses anonymous web boards like this one (but not HN to my knowledge) to coordinate and celebrate mass shootings that are directly admitted to be race-focused and white-supremacist-led. (Edit: The alt-right does use HN to spread hate and their "ideology", but I have not seen direct specific calls to violence here)

I'm not sure they are calling themselves alt-right or match that description. They are also not coordinating attacks but posting their manifestos and celebrating is correct.

I could of course be wrong and I know that the alt-right movement has been mired with white supremacists and others from the start but I did like the description when it at least on surface was not about that but a different take on the dominant version of the right-wing in the US; similar to the tea party movements or difference between socialism and democratic socialism.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#504

Post by mfoy_ »

mushufasa wrote: post #455

I liked this article, though I think it missed the best part of Hacker News. To me, Hacker News can feel like walking through Dumbledore's office -- magical and mind-bending collections of incredible devices, ideas, and oddities. Just yesterday someone posted a comment with links to UI design libraries that I've been subconsciously wishing for in my dreams (humaans, undraw.co), and I used it in a product demo. As a s…

Don't suppose you saved a link to that comment?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#505

Post by citilife »

I gotta say, I appreciate the moderation on Hacker News. I've appreciated several messages back and forth with dang and sctb, about moderation, my behavior, even UI. From my experience, it's the best moderated sites on the internet. Kudos moderating team!

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#506

Post by stcredzero »

fzeroracer wrote: post #454
stcredzero wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left is not a racist, hateful group You should look into the beatings of the Marines going to a dance by members of Antifa. The Antifa assailants said vile, racist things to their non-white victim. they do not coordinate and perform mass shootings. This particular problem is not shared equally by both sides. There are calls for arming on the Far Left, and documented cases of their acquiring and training with weap…

I believe I asked you a while ago to provide citations for your claims. Can you provide me some citations? Since you seem to consistently make claims that the left is as violent if not more so than the right and I'd love to see some data.

I believe I asked you a while ago to provide citations for your claims.

As far as Antifa assault involving ethnic intimidation goes: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/alleged-antifa-membe...

It's hard to know the context. The last time I remember I was asked for a citation, I found the Washington Post article I was going to refer to was paywalled. It's now available to me again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-the-united-states...

Most likely the specific observation you're referencing was that in the last 2 years of the chart (2016, 2017), if you go down to the bar charts for left wing and right wing violence, you'll see that there are 11 incidents of right wing violence for that period and 17 incidents for left wing violence.

More generally, in terms of incidents like vandalism, threats, and assault, there are lists going into several 100's of incidents for the past several years for the far left. If you want to find them and analyze them, that sounds worthwhile. There were tons and tons of such incidents on YouTube, seemingly endless. However YouTube seems to engage in suppression of videos that go against certain political agendas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUbsnXk0srU

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#507

Post by segfaultbuserr »

dang wrote: post #502
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News doesn't simply arrange comments by the number of upvotes they receive, it also considers the karma of the commenters and the freshness of the comments. Also, when submissions aged and comments settled, the current top comment would always get a lot of upvotes due to its position, and lock them "in place" by the strong positive feedback. So I doubt if reading the top comments is a very objective method for…

> it also considers the karma of the commenters Karma doesn't affect ranking on HN. This comes up often enough that I wonder where the idea came from. Do other forums work this way?

Thanks for the official statement ;-)

Interestingly, I originally believed HN is pure-upvote based, then I learned it from other HN comments that says karma affects ranking and I believed it.

So I'd say it's just an unsubstantiated rumor/misinformation getting circulated in the comment section from time to time, combined with the impression of HN having a "magic algorithm", so many believed it without any fact-checking. Also, the quick-moving nature of HN comments somehow created a confirmation bias that makes the idea appeared to be true.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#508

Post by [deleted] »

skrebbel wrote: post #142
Mizza wrote: post #16

Shout 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…

[deleted]

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#509

Post by dang »

craftyguy wrote: post #370
cmroanirgo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, quoting @dang: ≥ What does seem to work better is personal interaction, over and over and over again, with individual users. That, case by case by case, seems to move the needle. But it’s very slow.” I think the guidelines are a great way of encouraging us all to be more thoughtful to others comments, and have noticed a difference in the way I might comment HN. Often I kill my comment before I actua…

> I think the guidelines are a great way of encouraging us all to be more thoughtful to others comments, and have noticed a difference in the way I might comment HN. The guidelines are somewhat of a joke, and are only followed (even by mods) when it is convenient to do so. For example, I've been repremanded in the past by our supreme leader dang for posting comments like "do you have a source for that?", because he a…

Where did I do that?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#510

Post by stcredzero »

1000units wrote: post #459
fzeroracer wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I asked you a while ago to provide citations for your claims. Can you provide me some citations? Since you seem to consistently make claims that the left is as violent if not more so than the right and I'd love to see some data.

I hereby grant stcredzero permission to cite me and affirm the claims made in his above post are factually accurate.

With collaboration like that, we should be able to start our own news media company!
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