Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

news.ycombinator.com

11–20 of 498 posts

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#15

Tom, please fix the flag abuse problem. It's gotten to the point where I realize there's no point in commenting on many threads, given my opinions, some of which are very normal nationally.

When I've found myself being publicly tsk'ed by the people around me, I've taken a moment to try go figure out why they disapprove of what I'm saying. It's been a useful life exercise.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#17

Tom, please fix the flag abuse problem. It's gotten to the point where I realize there's no point in commenting on many threads, given my opinions, some of which are very normal nationally.

When I've found myself being publicly tsk'ed by the people around me, I've taken a moment to try go figure out why they disapprove of what I'm saying. It's been a useful life exercise.

Sometimes you're right, sometimes they are. Sometimes, as the Rick & Morty quote goes, "Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer."

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#19
post #8

Welcome Tom, thank you and Dan for helping to run one of the best corners of the web for many of us. Curious that you both made new accounts, is that basically a similar thing to having a "root" user then? So you can't use a normal / previous account or it will ruin it? :)

No, it's just a device to mark the context switch and to avoid misunderstandings, since the previous comments were all posted without an implicit "mod" bit.

Ah that makes sense! Thanks for the clarification. It's always interesting learning how HN operates.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#20
One thing that I appreciate about dang, and PG before him, is their intellectual honesty and strong sense of ethics.

On the face of it, HN should be terrible. It's a forum owned an investment firm as promotion for their business.

But because HN was started by an individual with real values, and has been operated day-to-day by individuals that followed in his tradition, its been capable of unreasonable greatness and real authenticity.

At this point, HN is sort of the tail that wags the YC dog. There are a great many seed funds but only one HN.

It would be a good thing for the world if HN was spun out as a non-profit and maintained long-term. But in any case, we can all hope that it will at least continue to be stewarded by good people for a while longer.

Good luck and thanks!

Post reply on HN