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Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

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Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#61

Post by alwa »

roflyear wrote: post #51
pstuart wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about that, but a lot of it depends on what you consider to be "dissenting opinions".

I agree it depends on the definition. Quite honestly my vibe, and really that is all it is for any of us discussing this, is pretty much anything more aggressive than my comment above (or even including my comment above, once more people read it). I definitely DO NOT mean clear hate speech, etc.. that's not my point at all.

I, for one, come here in substantial part for the norms against aggression and toward calm substantive discussion.

Shouting matches and rhetorical posturing are exhausting. There are places for that—most places online, anymore; this is not one of them.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#62

Post by cbeach »

bee_rider wrote: post #52
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't that be directed to those with an agenda who and are flagging certain posts? Those of us who complain about this highly targeted flagging just want to avoid censorship. I can't see how we need to reflect on this.

They are flagging posts that they see as pushing an agenda. There isn’t some official separation of agenda-less and agenda-full ideas.

Posts that break guidelines should be flagged, and the bar should be pretty high.

I don't think there is a guideline that bans posts from "pushing an agenda" (which would be very subjective)

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#63

Post by incoming1211 »

roflyear wrote: post #38
theoryofx wrote: post #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 r…

I really don't think that HN lets dissenting opinions thrive (well, not anything that is truly controversial but not clearly hateful). That may feel cozy but it's not a reflection of anything pure or good, imo.

The problem is HN is mainly left leaning so its difficult to have discussion at times as dang and the community will shut it down quickly as differing opinions are not welcome even if its factual.

(chances are people will downvote without comment or scream "ThAtS nOt TrUe")

(Love how HN proved my comment as correct)

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#64

Post by Zak »

cbeach wrote: post #47
dpkirchner wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forums like this are "censored" and that's a really good thing. We don't need a steady stream of (for example) hate for women, minorities, and trans people that you see on truly uncensored forums.

All illegal speech should be hidden from public discussion. However, it would be disconcerting if stating biological facts led to censorship on a forum that focusses on science and technology. The definition of "hate" has been stretched a lot over the last few years, and if that restricts discussion of facts and ideas, then it is harmful.

"Stating biological facts" is code for an opinion about how society should view trans people, which is off-topic for HN.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#65

Post by whalesalad »

roflyear wrote: post #38
theoryofx wrote: post #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 r…

I really don't think that HN lets dissenting opinions thrive (well, not anything that is truly controversial but not clearly hateful). That may feel cozy but it's not a reflection of anything pure or good, imo.

[flagged]

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#66

Post by otterley »

roflyear wrote: post #38
theoryofx wrote: post #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 r…

I really don't think that HN lets dissenting opinions thrive (well, not anything that is truly controversial but not clearly hateful). That may feel cozy but it's not a reflection of anything pure or good, imo.

Then you're not spending enough time reading the comments on controversial stories. Disagreement is alive and well on HN.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#67

Post by ryandrake »

cbeach wrote: post #56
mindcrime wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flags are issued by regular users like us though. What do you expect a moderator to do, except maybe manually intervene to "un dead" something if it seems like a case of overly biased flagging? That's assuming mods have the ability to do that (I've always assumed that they do).

Flagging content should be a privilege that comes at a certain level of trust, and the privilege should be revoked by moderators for people that use flags to further an agenda. Trust in forum users can be measured by various metrics - The Discourse forum software is a good example of how to do this: https://blog.discourse.org/2018/06/understanding-discourse-t...

Since it's such a powerful action, it would be nice if flaggers had to at least justify the flag. Is it breaking a site rule? Is it spam? Is it not the original source? Does it actually violate the rules, or are you just using "Flag" as a mega-downvote for articles you don't personally like?

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#68

Post by dpkirchner »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #40
dpkirchner wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forums like this are "censored" and that's a really good thing. We don't need a steady stream of (for example) hate for women, minorities, and trans people that you see on truly uncensored forums.

I agree, but when that is abused because of a minorities' preference, then it's bad. That's what's happening here.

I think we need to get specific -- what preferences are you referring to, and who is the minority?

EcommerceFlow mentioned opinions that are "very normal nationally." I don't want to assume the worst so I'm trying not to read in to that.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#70

Post by mac-mc »

roflyear wrote: post #51
pstuart wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about that, but a lot of it depends on what you consider to be "dissenting opinions".

I agree it depends on the definition. Quite honestly my vibe, and really that is all it is for any of us discussing this, is pretty much anything more aggressive than my comment above (or even including my comment above, once more people read it). I definitely DO NOT mean clear hate speech, etc.. that's not my point at all.

So, do you mean you don't like tone policing? You can say pretty much anything as long as the tone stays intellectual and doesn't go into brain damage politics, harassment, or conspiracy zone where it's being banned because it's off-topic and, frankly, exhausting and unproductive.
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