This is the largest circle jerk I’ve ever found myself in unwillingly.
Unwillingly?
The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
671–680 of 812 posts
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#672Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The issue they took, and I would take too, with that portion of the New Yorker article is that it attacks the idea of physical data as a valid, supreme source of truth. But I doesn't say that. Throughout the paragraph the emphasis is on the recklessness. "hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative—often masks a deeper _recklessness_" "_Ill-advised_ citations" "_thought_ experiments" "logic, applied _na…
At what point in the article does it state that well-executed, fact-supported, scientific arguments are a superior (or even valid) form of policy debate?
That isn't relevant either. I never said it did nor does any of my arguments rest on that. You and "cloakandswagger" are making claims that aren't supported by article, which I have addressed, and should back those up to have an argument.
This is exactly why fact based discussions not only don't work, but don't happen on hacker news. Because you can just say something different. And that is how it always is. Someone posts a citation and someone else goes out of their way to debunk it. Then they just say something else. Next time no one bothers. Because the point isn't to have a fact based discussion, but to not be questioned on an already existing view. And that is what the article correctly caught on to.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#673This reads like a mediocre college admissions essay full of breathless, overdramatic characterizations of minor, anodyne exchanges. I had to stop reading when a two word response from a user gave the author "a small rush of triumph." The tone and word choice is just nauseating. Examples abound: > "Commenters . . . . bickered about the word 'soul.'" > "Conversation spiralled, with users making arguments about Cartesia…
One has tatts.
You know you want "Please don't do this here" on your arm. Maybe in, like, kanji characters or something.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#674This 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…
The political discussions that make their way into HN are very US-centric and that excludes me and countless others who actively participate here. A lot of such discussions are not real enough to me - they are problems of a much more privileged world. If we were to have truly political discussions, we'll need to include all the other countries of the world, which none of us would want. There are other places where po…
That's like saying because we can't fix everything, we should fix nothing.
There's no need to include everything. HN is selective. It's in English. The reason it can't have posts about the responsibility of SV towards the tech and social impact they make is because that would pierce the veil of fake narrative that supports SVs continued unexamined influence.
The reality is the mods are not the tip of the spear. There are others mods above them who intervene to set policy and crush off plan posts. A truth this place can never acknowledge.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#675FWIW, I find that the political discussions here are still a lot better than in most other places on the internet and sometimes I find them quite valuable. For example, I have a pretty solid attitude against genetically enhanced food and where I live, there are quite some people who think likewise (central Europe). But through HN I learned, that there are other places in the world, where such food can significantly i…
The attitude against genetically enhanced food is purposely promoted in Europe. You could say the attitude is not organic. :-)
It serves as a non-tariff trade barrier against the USA. Promoting this attitude serves the European agricultural producers, particularly the seed suppliers. European consumers of course pay higher prices.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#676Shout 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?
I've been here since 2013 and I noticed a massive improvement in the submitted articles and comments once dang became a moderator. Thank you dang and sctb.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#677> N-gate, a satirical Web site with the slogan “We can’t both be right” (a NAND gate is a kind of logic gate that only outputs “false” if all of its inputs read “true”), offers a weekly summary of Hacker News discussions, dubbed “webshit weekly.” I always find these critics a little funny. It's like the classic Beatles joke about record burners: They're still buying the record. If you're writing weekly newsletter abo…
From the N-gate proprietor
> these are people who spend their lives trying to identify all the ways they can extract money from others without quite going to jail
I don't think this individual understands how diverse this community is. I was a teacher when I started reading HN, and now work in the charitable sector (albeit tech centered).
I know musicians, educators, academic scientists and historians that read and participate here. We're not all founding or working for startups.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 effecti…
> how everything gets filtered through the Californian perspective. I can't say I know what that is, but are you sure about this? The HN community is overwhelmingly not in California, and comments about California seem to me to skew to the critical and negative.
I'm not sure, but I would eat my hat if it's not the single largest voting block. The influence is not about praise or criticism, but what is easily understandable or what resonates with lived experience.
There's a lot of different people on HN. I don't mean to say we're all the same. It's just that voting is a low-pass filter.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#679Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
> 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?
At least partly that is about being topical for their audience. What I am trying to point out is that just because it is written from a different perspective or for a different audience doesn't mean that it is wrong. You and I might dislike things about Hacker News, but by being here we have accepted those things. But when they write about Hacker News, they don't have to fit into the Hacker News narrative like we do. They don't have to avoid calling out what they see as bad or find what we see as good.
That certain topics can't be discussed because they disappear from view is a defining characteristic of Hacker News. But on Hacker News it has always been justified by it not being moderation. "It was flagged by users" is the common explanation. But for someone coming from the outside, that isn't blinded by internal politics, it doesn't really matter as the result is the same. The same is true of other dogmas or faux pas. For their perspective to be damaging it has to go beyond valuing different things.
The other reason I have a bit of a hard time seeing it as judgemental is because they provided a lot of space for other perspectives (and even link to discussions). And those perspective seems consistent with the different positions. The article for example does not only address your perspective on the moderation, but conclude with it. They specifically and at length talk about the style of moderation and mention things like dead comments. You might even say it is the entire premise of the article.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
#680I 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…
I didn't know what "SJW" meant. Looked it up, it means "social justice warrior", defined by Wikipedia as "a pejorative term for an individual who promotes socially progressive views, including feminism, civil rights, and multiculturalism, as well as identity politics".
A funny thing is that "SJW" wasn't at all a pejorative. It is a self-selected name. The early usage was people proudly calling themselves SJWs.
To now say that SJW is a perjorative is weird. Sure, many of the people using the term happen to really dislike SJWs, but how can a self-selected name ever be a perjorative?