How do you know their names, how do you know there are only 2? One of the problems for me about HN is the secretive nature of moderation.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643321.
The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
621–630 of 812 posts
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#622I've been reading "dang" as the word "dang!" without realising it's actually "dan g" all this time. :)
It's both. That's why.
Edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494093 from way back when.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#623Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see HN as an intro course to programming, but more of like that older kid on the block who you notice is listening to bob dylan, and then you try again, you start to get past that nasally voice, really listening to the lyrics this time, and now you're turned on to a whole world of good music.
[I, honestly, am hostile to n00b accounts discussing non-tech topics.] I agreed with you from your opening thread until you held high Dylan's lyrics, rather than his instrumentally produced melodies which entranced me in the 80s. Poetry is not legalese or code, and is open to interpretaion.
Downvotes, but no arguments, because they have none. It is quite sick.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#624Earlier quoted context omitted.
The media spun the story in the first place (the reductive 'a woman who took a photo of black hole') because stories of women achieving things generates clicks. The media spun the story in the second place (the incredibly simplistic 'developers hate women') because the media dislikes people arguing with it and because sexism generates clicks.
From my perspective the story is: some people on HN which profess to value knowledge, scholarship and professionalism and "reducing" things for the sake of simplicity, express strong opinions on a matter of which they know little, their behavior mirrors archetypical behavior studied in the literature, and then rage when they're "reduced" based on scholarship they don't know. This is too long, so I'd summarize it as "…
It's hard having a conversation with you as you don't seem to respond to what the points anyone is making when you write a follow up comment. What is the literature you're repeatedly referring to? HN and the scientist seem to be in agreement on the work not being that of an individual, why is that ignorant?
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#625I 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…
Read
Another
Book.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#626Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But as this article shows, abdicating the responsibility by keeping the topics sterile is similarly suspect, in the sense of fiddling while Rome burns. I believe a willingness to confront the ugly sides of technology with some courage of conviction would eventually be recognised, even if it may occasionally involve a bit of a mess. Absolutely true. The failure of mods (and even pg?) to recognize this is the single…
Nobody's "keeping the topics sterile". Threads about "the ugly sides of technology" are common on Hacker News. Of the topics you mention, surveillance is frequently and massively discussed; as for Palantir, https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story... . You may feel it's not enough, but nothing is ever enough: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... .
"More is never enough." Mae West
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#627This 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…
I don't think Hacker News is diverse enough for most political conversations to be useful. There's biases just because we're heavily skewed towards engineers, but there's subtler problems too. For example, how everything gets filtered through the Californian perspective.
Hacker News cannot solve all the world's problems. Not even all the problems related to technology. It's ok to focus on the things we can do effectively. HN isn't the only forum to discuss important issues.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#628Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment is a very measured critique of the article but one need not be so kind. I imagine you may not be doing it our of mere politeness, I get the sense some comments are bending over backwards as a means to not play into the perspective in this article. I won't be so kind: the author imputed every bias they have about a community they know nothing about and played on stereotypes from the beginning and didn't e…
It is a pretty common way to setup these stories, to play into stereotypes to disarm the reader (basically acknowledging their fears) and open them up to something else. It just isn't written for this audience or from its perspective.
To be clear, I'm aware of the device your talking about. They did that for sure for dang and sctb's character to highlight how they in particular buck the stereotype but throughout the piece the author makes it clear their focus was essentially on the fringe of comments that occur on this site and how they fit into a larger narrative about silicon valley culture. I provided the quote because it is specific evidence the author approached the writing with this perspective towards the site, and should one be totally surprised it is the dominant narrative throughout?
This is not quite related to your reply, but I will say it's rather ironic that the author had this expectation of the mods in particular because in my mind they are often the ones rushing to defense of civility and often chide people making comments of the disposition that the author expected them to have. Of course, that might be because I use this site and see dang or sctb's replies to dead comments and they don't, but approaching subjects you intend to learn about in good faith instead of tired stereotypes would be best.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#629I've been reading "dang" as the word "dang!" without realising it's actually "dan g" all this time. :)
I thought it was a Chinese name
Related: My daughter's second grade teacher was Mrs. Emily Chewning, of Scottish extraction. She told me that when the first parent-teacher conferences happened, a number of parents were surprised at her appearance: kids always referred to her as "Miss Chew" and from the sound of the name, parents assumed she was Chinese.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#630Just last night I went down a rabbit hole reading about perspectives on climate change. I googled "hacker news for environmentalism", looking for a forum similar to this but with a less direct focus on software tech. This led back to an ask HN thread asking what users were doing to help combat climate change. This in turn led me to a comment that mentioned the "Deep Adaptation" paper by Jem Bendell which was something of an epiphany in that it's an almost perfect exposition on the existential dread that has come to be a low-level hum in my everyday life. It was also comforting to know that someone had codified my attitude about this dread being not a hindrance but rather a good thing.
Anyway, it just goes to show that while I wish this forum had more of a focus on these issues, the discussion here is almost always a great source of thoughtful perspectives and a place to come express oneself honestly and openly. So thanks for that, HN.