131–140 of 155 posts
On serious note (and to avoid pitchfork holding HN mods) : May be it violates NY labour law under some interpretation, but that is an indication that the law is not well thought through and kills innovation. When people complain that a labour law will kill innovation most people tend to dismiss those suggestions. Well here it is now.
This raises some serious questions for anywhere with user/volunteer based content/moderation. Sites like Reddit operate on a model very similar to Stack Exchange, and any user-moderated forum that runs ads to pay for hosting/maintenance costs would seem to have the same issues. It also raises questions about the status of Instagram influencers, you-tube personalities, or anyone on a platform that derives it's value f…
I'm not a lawyer, but there is a common-sense difference between Stack Exchange and Reddit. On Reddit, it's just a community having a discussion. The participants, even the moderators, are mainly involved in guiding a discussion, and Reddit just facilitates that. On Stack Overflow, the moderators really are working directly on improving the site's content. They're practically unpaid editors.
I'm not saying that there isn't a "common-sense" counter-argument to some of the cases I noted, but "common-sense" is a defense to be raised in court, the case is brought based on if the law could apply. In my mind that's troubling as it weaponizes the law in a way it could easily be abused.
A bunch of non-lawyers taking a tiny chunk of law in isolation and speculating about whether something "seems illegal" based on it is really, really useless. And this HN thread is just going to be even more of that.
If laymen can not read, parse, and understand law, then laymen can not follow the law, and laymen can not have due process. Or in other words, lawyers are a value add, not a necessity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as has been publicly stated, nobody was advocating misgendering, there was only a question over details of the policy. See footnote 1 to the OP here https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-... "as a professional writer I, by training, write in a gender-neutral way specifically to avoid gender landmines, and sought clarification that this would continue to be ok"
> nobody was advocating misgendering That isn’t true. Monica didn’t advocate misgendering but there was at least one other moderator (since resigned) who did. I’m not sure if that’s what iron1003 was referring to since it wasn’t as well publicised as Monica being kicked out (not resigned) but it triggered some of the subsequent events.
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I run a forum and there's no shortage of people who would happily volunteer for a mod role. You have it wrong though: they get plenty of compensation through reputation, clout, and a feeling of power over their peers and being heard and helping out in a community that they love (or some combo of these). That's why they do it. Why is that not a fair trade without money exchanging hands? Growing up, I used to mow an ag…
The thing is, the service and main value that Stack Exchange provides is literally a moderated forum for people to ask and answer questions. Without that moderation, the service would be much less valuable, because it would be full of spam and worthless questions and answers, and less people would use it. This is what drives their revenue and their valuation. This isn't the case with HN, where the main contribution o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact remains that moderating forums is labor, and stack exchange receives a lot of value from that labor that the mods themselves don't see a dime of.
I run a forum and there's no shortage of people who would happily volunteer for a mod role. You have it wrong though: they get plenty of compensation through reputation, clout, and a feeling of power over their peers and being heard and helping out in a community that they love (or some combo of these). That's why they do it. Why is that not a fair trade without money exchanging hands? Growing up, I used to mow an ag…
That sounds a lot like the "social influencer" pitches to get free stuff in return for "exposure".
Reason #4000 to not have a physical presence in the state of New York. I'm sorry but this law is kinda ridiculous.
What state allows for-profit organizations to solicit unpaid volunteer labor from people outside of prison? It’s a pretty obvious violation of Federal law and multiple state laws.
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The law doesn't seem to make a distinction about who initiated the relationship, only the nature of it. And the existence of organized/moderated subreddits is definitely an "integral part of the employer's business."
New York law uses five factors to determine if someone is an employee. Reddit is fine on several points: the degree of control exercised by the employer over the workers and the permanence or duration of the working relationship. Being a moderator of a sub-reddit doesn't entail anything other than creating the sub-reddit, which anyone can do. In addition, there is no requirement for spending time moderating that sub-…
There is a fuzzy difference between how sites Reddit and Stack Exchange operate, but if Stack Exchange is violating labor laws, what change to Reddit might move it across that fuzzy line? It puts a site like Reddit in an odd position where involving themselves more directly in the moderation of their own site, in terms of requirements for subreddits and mods, tools or directions/expectations for how communities are moderated, etc, could move them into a position of violating those laws.
Seems like there's also a good case for Reddit moderators to not be volunteers as well. To be honest I've always thought the community moderated model has seemed like somewhat of a loophole that was eventually going to be closed. It's having your cake and eating it too. IMHO you can either have UGI with a professional moderator team OR you can have professionally made content with no moderator team.
I think Reddit moderators are less restricted/directed by Reddit so they fall closer on the spectrum to the guy running a debate club/whatever at the local community centre. I don't think anyone would argue that they're an employee of the community centre, even if the community centre prohibited alcohol at their events.
I definitely shouldn't be subject to labor laws for that work. It's organizing stuff around a hobby, not creating concrete value for or at the discretion of Reddit the business.
Some of the bigger subs though should have full time staff on the mod teams however.
Ban Stack Exchange in NY state. Problem solved. On serious note (and to avoid pitchfork holding HN mods) : May be it violates NY labour law under some interpretation, but that is an indication that the law is not well thought through and kills innovation. When people complain that a labour law will kill innovation most people tend to dismiss those suggestions. Well here it is now.