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The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

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Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#681

Post by ckris »

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…

Honestly it is a bit weird how you seemingly jumped the thread to address my other comment. My point is still the same whether it is about programming or programming culture. This material is mostly produced elsewhere and present in all programming outlets. What makes HN different is to a large extent what they focus on in the article, including the mix of programming and mainstream news. Most other outlets don't allow this, especially not as liberally. It is easy to equate HN with programming culture, but I just don't think it is really how things are. Hacker News also has a specific different culture. Of course one might argue that allowing more popular content makes programming culture more accessible, and exposes more people to it. I just object to the slight dismissal of the article, because that is the topic at hand. But now below the fold.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#682

Post by SolaceQuantum »

tomhoward wrote: post #652
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of helping to work against this is to challenge and ask for genuine evidence with an open heart. I don't want to assume that that is what the poster is believing, but it also clashes with my understanding of reality.

I'll have a go at addressing this... My assessment of that thread is the same as it always is when a thread gets a huge number of comments: sentiment fits a roughly normal distribution, with the mean position being something approximating "this is a really difficult question and either course of action has significant risks and pitfalls", and every step away from the mean point of view placing increasing importance o…

Sorry, I’m not challenging that requires a thorough breakdown. The challenge is the low bar of whether or not a topic has an overwhelming majority of opinion. Which you agree the evidence doesn’t support on a fairly casual glance and analysis of top voted comments and their responses.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#683

Post by pron »

nailer wrote: post #624
pron wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't think anyone has ever claimed that it was the work of only one individual, and I'm referring to the literature (you can Google for it) showing that women face, among other kinds of discriminatory treatment, increased scrutiny. In other words, the reaction of some on HN (thankfully a minority, but a predictable and loud one) is a textbook case of sexism. Not recognizing that is not a matter of opinion but a simple ignorance of the scholarship on the subject.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#684

Post by LunaSea »

ckris wrote: post #589
noobermin wrote: post #580

Earlier 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.

In certain circles it's called racism and sexism.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#685

Post by rusk »

lallysingh wrote: post #495
hollerith wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the folks around here will downvote arguments they agree with, just because they don’t like seeing such things on HN. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious how you came to know that. Do you have some way of seeing who downvoted what?

Sometimes people comment on things they downvote.

quite

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#686

Post by tomhoward »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #682
tomhoward wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll have a go at addressing this... My assessment of that thread is the same as it always is when a thread gets a huge number of comments: sentiment fits a roughly normal distribution, with the mean position being something approximating "this is a really difficult question and either course of action has significant risks and pitfalls", and every step away from the mean point of view placing increasing importance o…

Sorry, I’m not challenging that requires a thorough breakdown. The challenge is the low bar of whether or not a topic has an overwhelming majority of opinion. Which you agree the evidence doesn’t support on a fairly casual glance and analysis of top voted comments and their responses.

To be clear, my contention is that we should expect there to be no overwhelming or prevailing opinion, and that a quick look at the top-voted root comments and their subthreads seems to support this expectation.

For what it's worth, I think we're taking this discussion a bit too seriously, as the person you were initially replying to was being at least a little humorous and self-deprecating.

The parent comment they replied to made an assertion of the form HN's prevailing view on blah is X, and they replied to the effect of that's funny, my perception was that the prevailing view was opposite-of-X, which is a neat example of the hostile-media effect, and I think the commenter was aware of that.

It's interesting though, that it was the counter-point that you saw the need to challenge, not the original assertion :)

Do you assert that the prevailing or overwhelming opinion was in favour of one particular position? Can you provide evidence for that?

I'm very conscious that we could go around in circles on this :)

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#687

Post by sergioj97 »

tomhoward wrote: post #686
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I’m not challenging that requires a thorough breakdown. The challenge is the low bar of whether or not a topic has an overwhelming majority of opinion. Which you agree the evidence doesn’t support on a fairly casual glance and analysis of top voted comments and their responses.

To be clear, my contention is that we should expect there to be no overwhelming or prevailing opinion, and that a quick look at the top-voted root comments and their subthreads seems to support this expectation. For what it's worth, I think we're taking this discussion a bit too seriously, as the person you were initially replying to was being at least a little humorous and self-deprecating. The parent comment they r…

> Do you assert that the prevailing or overwhelming opinion was in favour of one particular position? Can you provide evidence for that?

I think like he's arguing exactly the opposite, as he's implied multiple times:

> The challenge is the low bar of whether or not a topic has an overwhelming majority of opinion.

> But I'm asking why the person posting believes that the HN community overwhelmingly believes X and their evidence for that.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#688

Post by Fjolsvith »

ckris wrote: post #589
noobermin wrote: post #580

Earlier 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 play into stereotypes to disarm the reader

That's a nice way to put it. I'd have said it was a way of coloring the audiences' initial impression of the information with the journalist's own racist and sexist views.

Edit: And, I'd agree that it is a common practice in journalism these days.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#689

Post by tomhoward »

sergioj97 wrote: post #687
tomhoward wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, my contention is that we should expect there to be no overwhelming or prevailing opinion, and that a quick look at the top-voted root comments and their subthreads seems to support this expectation. For what it's worth, I think we're taking this discussion a bit too seriously, as the person you were initially replying to was being at least a little humorous and self-deprecating. The parent comment they r…

> Do you assert that the prevailing or overwhelming opinion was in favour of one particular position? Can you provide evidence for that? I think like he's arguing exactly the opposite, as he's implied multiple times: > The challenge is the low bar of whether or not a topic has an overwhelming majority of opinion. > But I'm asking why the person posting believes that the HN community overwhelmingly believes X and thei…

If they are of the view that there was no clearly prevailing position on that topic, then we're in consensus and we're all done with the discussion :)

>> But I'm asking why the person posting believes that the HN community overwhelmingly believes X and their evidence for that.

My read on it is that the person wasn't making an assertion of fact on this, they were making a wry observation that their perception of a prevailing view was the opposite of their parent commenter's perception of a prevailing view, thus demonstrating the hostile media effect in action.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News

#690

Post by ethbro »

ckris wrote: post #672
ethbro wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So you decline to provide evidence that the article positively

> state[s] that well-executed, fact-supported, scientific arguments are a superior (or even valid) form of policy debate

We both agree that the article goes on at length about the recklessness of fact-based arguments on HN.

Furthermore, I point to two direct quotes that I characterize as anti-fact and elevating non-factual or (debatably in the case of the latter) semi-factual methods of discussion to the same level as fact-based discussion.

You decline to provide evidence rebutting those two points, and instead cite the "emphasis" of the surrounding paragraph as a reason those two points should be ignored.

Does that accurately describe your position?

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