Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

Post by perching_aix » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 7:02 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #139

perching_aix wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a moderation issue? Because to me that's more of a system / culture issue. You can't argue in people's stead. If most dissenting commentary is hurtful, inciteful, manipulative, generally demagogue, etc., it's going to get culled, and you get a situation where "dissent isn't thriving ".

Moderation drives culture and should in the very least offset the worst tendencies of culture. Otherwise, what exactly is moderation for?

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC

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.

Post by Suppafly » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 7:06 PM UTC

xboxnolifes wrote: post #134

otterley wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I disagree. People will frequently say that downvoting is not for disagreeing, but in every controversial thread dissenting opinions are quickly downvoted and frequently flagged. Some recover, but many die or end up pushed down into obscurity. Mildly controversial opinions sometimes survive and get discussion, but anything past that rarely get a reply and just get downvoted and flagged into oblivion. This isn't exact…

Post by Teever » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 7:08 PM UTC

perching_aix wrote: post #151

Teever wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderation drives culture and should in the very least offset the worst tendencies of culture. Otherwise, what exactly is moderation for?

Moderation does participate in the culture of course, but I disagree that it would drive it necessarily. You can only do so much by reminding people to align with the posting guidelines and removing ill fitting posts and individuals.

Post by ziddoap » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 7:10 PM UTC

buttercraft wrote: post #110

kccqzy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, having the opinion that manifest V3 is good for users is an opinion that will not thrive on HN. Personally I hope Tom will bring new moderation policies that will truly let unpopular opinions thrive, but I don't have high hopes here since this is just an announcement of a new moderator, not an announcement of new moderation policies.

> having the opinion What I see a lot of is this: User posts "$opinion $generalization $snark $dismissal $adhominem". User gets down voted or flagged. User complains that downvotes are for expressing $opinion and that $opinion is not allowed on this site! But we can all see the other things in their post that probably brought on most of the downvotes.