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The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

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Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#631

Post by wpietri »

SquareWheel wrote: post #576
wpietri wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "this user" you're talking about Dr Ichikawa, the professor of philosophy? Who specializes in the very topic you're attempting to correct them on? I can't tell if you're serious or if this is just some sort of Poe's Law attempt to satirize the behavior he's pointing out.

The skeptical movement subscribes to critical thinking, empiricism, and applying the scientific model to find answers. To say that skeptics don't believe in climate change is very untrue. This is contrasted to denialism which denies claims out of hand. This is not based on scientific data, but gut feeling or motivated reasoning. Dr. Ichikawa is thus describing denialism in his tweets. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

You seem to be confusing the skeptical movement, which is indeed a specific group of people, with skepticism, which exists before and outside of that movement.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#632

Post by resters »

dang wrote: post #618
resters wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have focused on the stories being allowed on HN. My issue is with the aggressive throttling and shadow banning of users who post polite comments in support of unpopular* views (rather than just letting the upvote/downvote system do its job). I'm sure being a mod on HN is difficult, but by punishing users with throttling without explanation is not only rude, it creates the wrong incentive, turning HN into a game o…

Oh, I didn't realize (and if you said it, sorry I missed it) that you were talking about comments rather than submissions. We rate-limit accounts when they have a history of posting too many unsubstantive comments too quickly, and/or getting involved in flamewars. I know it's annoying and a crude tool, but it's one of few ways we have to address that problem in software. If I knew a less rude way to do it, I'd love t…

I think each account should show its history of being rate limited, and the mod who initiates it should cite specific comments that were used as evidence of wrongdoing, as well as describe the nature of the wrongdoing.

The mechanism itself isn't necessarily a problem, it's the arbitrariness of it and the lack of accountability. Most people have some degree of accountability in their job. I think HN mods are an exception.

> whatever they did earlier

It would be impossible to audit whether this is being done judiciously or fairly without a page listing all such moderations, their context, etc.

> whatever they did earlier to reduce signal/noise ratio

I'd argue that moderation itself reduces the s/n ratio. If I notice a pattern where one user continually posts low quality comments, I'll be inclined to ignore or downvote that user. If the user got throttled, then it removes my ability to notice the pattern.

Similarly, if stories are re-titled (a common abuse of moderation) I may not realize I've already read the discussion or the linked content and read/click it again.

Worse yet, re-titling submissions often removes any clue about what made the submission interesting. Ironically the moderation practice of titling the HN submission with the article title introduces more click-baity titles into HN than would exist due to submitters' tactics.

No offense is intended by my feedback. I do think the moderators have a few pretty glaring blind spots and I am hoping that my feedback is well received.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#633

Post by wpietri »

nkurz wrote: post #612
wpietri wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So pretty clearly I have wildly underestimated the amount that flagging is used to suppress stories. Is there some way for me to see which stories are getting flagged and by how much?

On the site proper, I think flagged stories that have lots of comments are still shown in the Active list (follow the link to Lists at the bottom). But easier may be to view outside sites such as http://hnrankings.info (look for sharp drops in position and lines that end before the right side of the graph) or http://hckrnews.com (look for DEAD in the title or a blank in the number of comments).

Thanks. In that case, I'd like to suggest to dang, et al, that HN make flagging behavior and its results more visible. If we have to read tea leaves to find out what's being excluded and have no idea who's excluding it, that seems like a dangerous situation. And one where, as we can see in the thread, it allows people to be pretty paranoid.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#634

Post by tomcam »

dredmorbius wrote: post #308

It's interesting to compare HN with attempts which claimed they were striving to create an inclusive space but which failed. I'd encountered one such newly-launched site, heralded as "a kinder, gentler Reddit" in 2016. Not only did the site itself collapse and fail a year later, but it failed, in the extreme, to live up to its promise, in part through the user community (always a confounding factor) but also through…

I disagree with dang and sctb on occaision. I am disappointed that there are topics that HN doesn't seem able to discuss (and have called these out). I've been admonished a few times. But on balance, the site works, and rewards time spent on it. And credit must go to dang and sctb. Thanks, guys.

Same here. I believe I have been throttled unjustifiably on a couple of occasions, but so what. They responded quickly to my pleas for help and I also learned stuff. I feel very grateful to have this site as part of my life.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#635

Post by tomcam »

LandR wrote: post #80
Thorrez wrote: post #66

>Then my eyes moved down the thread, where a third user had left a new comment. It read: “King Canute was supposed to stop the tide, you couch alluder.” It seems to me that comment is a joke. Playfully nitpicking word choice while putting in a bit of banter. But the article seems to be taking the comment as a serious argument/insult.

I think this is quite a common thing on the internet, people feigning ignorance to be upset about something.

I can tell you as a person who has been spanked by dang a few times that there truly are people who can be ignorant in the other direction.

I have written a number of replies that to me were simply neutral questions but which felt like an attack, from what I can tell, because they were harshly downvoted and I was even throttled by the mods.

I have to assume that’s on me and I have largely stopped asking for clarification because I seem to do it without sufficient empathy or something.

dang did reply thoughtfully to my inquiries about what I had done and that actually made me feel worse! I know those two are busy doing way more important things and I hate making their day worse.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#636

Post by astrange »

yhoiseth wrote: post #413
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)…

I don’t think LessWrong [1] is described as “toxic.” 1: https://www.lesswrong.com

The "rationalist community" are pretty obviously a cult. They live in group houses, use logic to convince their partners to be polyamorous, have a religious obsession with superintelligence, stuff like that.

Although I can't find the story I know I read a woman's experiences with sexual abuse and Yudkowsky's BDSM habits there sometime in the last year. Actually I believe she posted it then committed suicide; people on LW responded by complaining this was an unfair way to start an argument.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#638

Post by astrange »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #404
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)

On SA the mods were the toxic people. Do you remember Helldump? It was a forum dedicated to stalking random users and getting them banned by proving they weren't cool enough in real life to get to hang out on SA.

I think one reason for this is that to be a mod, you needed to have tons of free time and be friends with the admins already.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#639

Post by tomcam »

tosh wrote: post #476

The profile was exciting to read. Similar to devouring "making of" bonus material that used to be bundled with dvds. Made me think: I'd like to read/hear more from dang & sctb and how they look at things. Have you ever thought about something like a podcast or blog or something like a microblog or commented bookmark feed? edit: completely forgot: thank you so much for pouring your hearts and souls into this community…

Completely agree. It’s also stunningly impressive to me that the parent company pays the salaries of two full-time, severely overqualified moderators for site I can use for free.
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