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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

#191

Post by sanswork »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #141
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 was there since around 2015 and the evolution of that forum and its population/opinion has been very interesting, to say to put it mildly... Remember when the biggest disagreements were about ORM & Frameworks? I miss those days. I didnt even mind the discussion about the ethics of Uber or Airbnb, but now, now it is different, & not for the better.

So been here slightly longer and the only shift I can recall is a shift away from business to tech.

Early days had a lot more discussion about the business side of startups and vc. Then it started shifting more towards tech too the point now where startup/business discussion is mostly limited to Show/Ask posts.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#192

Post by pvg »

Lerc wrote: post #117
roflyear wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's see how that plays out first, I did just post it a few minutes ago (refresh has me at 0 karma fyi)

It is a shame that people will downvote a thing that is expressing an honest opinion. I can't really relate to the mindset of people who use downvoting as a 'I disagree' button. I don't think this extends to the way that HN is moderated or run. It is worth looking at dang's posts every now and again to take in the job that he does and how patient he can be, even with antagonism aimed directly at HN or himself persona…

I can't really relate to the mindset of people who use downvoting as a 'I disagree' button.

That's a valid use of the button by design, HN is literally made to allow for that use. Plus it mimics real life interactions - there is a social cost/friction to saying things people disagree with or think are outright wrong. Most online chitchat places deteriorate because they remove such social frictions.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#193

Post by dang »

hbn wrote: post #177
jdoliner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 autom…

That site had 11 major frontpage threads in the last year, which is a lot.

Every single one of them set off the flamewar detector. That's extremely unusual. If it were one or two I'd call it random, but 11 in a row, whatever the reason, is not random. We turned off that software penalty on about half of those threads.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#194

Post by ceejayoz »

kstrauser wrote: post #166
ceejayoz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

For sure, but then the followup question is "do I want to spend my time and energy around a bunch of people I think are wrong?'

If they're correct, maybe?

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#195

Post by dooglius »

otterley wrote: post #178
xboxnolifes wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That seems like a pretty mild controversy to me. How many people could even say whether their water has added fluoride?

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#196

Post by realityfactchex »

dang wrote: post #180
ep103 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 .

> The most that happens to a user-flagged or otherwise moderated post is that it does into the [dead] state...They remain visible to anyone with 'showdead' turned on in their profile.

And that is a huge reason why HN's flagging/moderation is rather good! Thanks for the good system.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#197

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#199

Post by layer8 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #188
layer8 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flagging isn’t done by moderators, it’s done by regular HN users.

I didn't say it was done by moderators, I said it was a tool for moderation. Flagging is the means by which regular HN users perform moderation activities, in addition to the actions available to the moderators.

Ok, I see. I understood “moderation policies” upthread to refer to what guides the actions of the moderators.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#200

Post by JoshTriplett »

layer8 wrote: post #199
JoshTriplett wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it was done by moderators, I said it was a tool for moderation. Flagging is the means by which regular HN users perform moderation activities, in addition to the actions available to the moderators.

Ok, I see. I understood “moderation policies” upthread to refer to what guides the actions of the moderators.

Fair enough, I can see from the thread how that interpretation could arise. I would definitely interpret "moderation policy" to be policy implemented by moderators. In this case, I was responding to the statement that "flagging is not moderation", and I thought it was useful to distinguish that flagging semantically is a kind of moderation (done by users rather than by moderators).
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