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Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#171

Post by wordofx »

lolinder wrote: post #105
incoming1211 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

> HN is mainly left leaning This is largely an illusion, as can be seen by the number of people complaining in the other direction about how wacko libertarians or MAGA or whatever dominate on here. What you're actually observing is that HN is one of the more diverse public spaces you participate in and there's no personalized algorithm that filters the content to only show what you want. When your exposure to left-le…

If 2 people end up in a civilised debate. It’s not uncommon for people to flag and downvote the opinion they disagree with even if the opinion is valid or backed up with facts. Feelings get too hurt here.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#172

Post by altairprime »

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.

HN does not welcome dissenting opinions in certain areas of tech where the individual freedoms of techies come into conflict with status quo social harms to non-techies; so, for example, you won’t see many HN articles about the ethical dilemmas of working at Palantir, how our industry’s libertarian foundations obstruct labor organizing today, what advantages the ‘bros’ receive in return for their misogyny, and so on. HN is a light-touch moderation site — as libertarian as possible, in keeping with our roots — so I certainly don’t hold the mods as responsible for the community’s defensiveness in that regard. In general, whether tech or otherwise, it’s not possible for a community to welcome uncomfortable dissent against its own underpinnings without a heavier hand on the moderation wheel than is cultural acceptable for HN and for our community. That doesn’t mean that HN rejects all dissent — certainly they may be other pillars of obstinance I haven’t personally identified and studied over the past fifteen or twenty years participating here — but, yes, absolutely, HN’s community has zero tolerance for certain dissent.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#173

Post by tomhow »

Many thanks for the warm welcome, everyone.

It’s been a privilege to help support this community and to work alongside dang, who has been a great friend and mentor for many years. It’s a great responsibility, to keep HN a healthy and thriving community, and I’m continually amazed to see all the ways dang puts thought and energy into it.

One final note is that it was never part of the negotiations that I was expected to know or learn Arc, yet somehow in the onboarding process the HN Arc repo has found its way onto my machine, so it feels like the bait and switch is on…

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#174

Post by kstrauser »

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.

One major problem is when people presume that their simplistic understanding of a subject is factual, and that everyone else is going off emotion. For example, some people will erroneously claim that the 2 genetic human options are "XX = woman, XY = man". Those seem to be the most likely combinations, partly because we don't collect DNA from 100% of the population and compare it to the observed anatomy, but they're clearly and documentedly not the only options.

Even without considering trans people, it's factually untrue that "XX = woman, XY = man, and those are the only possibilities." And yet, people who stopped at high school biology will argue until they're blue in the teeth that anyone with a more nuanced take is anti-science.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#177

Post by hbn »

jdoliner wrote: post #116
roflyear wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My experience is that HN's Overton window is probably on average 15-20% larger than most forums. That's not uniform across all topics though. So if you skew toward a particular set of topics it may feel like a typical forum, or even in some ways more constrained.

My issue is it seems like something has to only be a bit controversial to be completely hidden from everyone. There was the recent DF article about how Gruber thinks his articles are being artificially shitlisted and I can't help but agree? I don't necessarily think the mods have their fingers on the scale, but I wouldn't be surprised if the algorithm works in a way where if enough people flag something it gets automatically hidden, and there's enough people who see DF and automatically flag it that those blog posts get hidden every time.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#178

Post by otterley »

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…

There are over 1,200 comments on this controversial story alone, with plenty of debate within: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43517833

What more evidence do you need that spirited disagreement is alive and well here?

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#179

Post by kstrauser »

aliqot wrote: post #92
kstrauser wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think the person getting flagged is always deserving of the dogpile. Your comment implies "you should take this time in timeout to think about your actions" which is just a gentler form of rhetorical struggle sessions, and not always warranted.

For sure. I've had comments flagged that I thought were perfectly reasonable and non-controversial. My first reaction was to be angry and annoyed. But then my kinder angels suggested that perhaps I phrased my idea poorly and people misunderstood that I was largely agreeing with them, or at least very respectfully disagreeing. And then I decided to be more careful with my phrasing next time.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#180

Post by dang »

ep103 wrote: post #98
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.

[flagged]

We don't delete posts unless their authors ask us to. The most that happens to a user-flagged or otherwise moderated post is that it does into the [dead] state, and [dead[ posts aren't deleted. They remain visible to anyone with 'showdead' turned on in their profile.

If anyone wants more, here's a longer explanation from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43538728.

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