Thank you for what has to be a tough job.
Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
331–340 of 498 posts
Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have `showdead` enabled. It should not be the case that I find flagged posts that are good -- that are well written, don't break rules, etc -- but are flagged (presumably) due to expressing a dissenting view.
That ‘presumably’ is doing a lot of lifting and would be better supported by some examples of such posts.
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Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 c…
Yes and some people will also make scientifically inaccurate claims like "sex is a spectrum" and "there are more than two sexes" and "it is possible for humans to change sex".
There's a great deal of misunderstanding around this topic. Having open-minded, interesting and reflective discussion about topics like this should however lead to greater understanding. But that is not possible if it gets flagged and censored.
Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#334Welcome Tom! One thing I'd really like to see is less tactical flagging of content. Hopefully with your additional help, people who suppress content they disagree with will be kept in check. Open discourse is something that used to be sacrasanct in scientific and engineering circles. Over the last decade or so, free speech has been on the decline, and discussion is now very polarised along political lines. For exampl…
I will assist in reporting brigading leftist commenters. There are many of us that want to see politics out of commentary when unnecessary.
Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
Downvoting pushes peoples comments down and greys them out, effectively silencing them. It creates echo chambers. I reserve my downvotes for when arguments are made in bad faith, rely on logical fallacies, or present know-false information as an argument. If someone presents an argument on something I disagree with, but it's made in good faith and is well-structured, it deserves an upvote, even if I still disagree af…
Your very comment is now downvoted but not silenced. We all see it, as we do every grey comment, as long as one works their way down the comments page. Not every comment is going to be agreed with and rise above the fold, and that’s ok.
So you understand how echo chambers are created and are fine with it?
The problem is that there is no one with power here that can come to the "little guy's" defence. There is no will around here for that kind of support, because the only people hired to wield such power are of like mind. DJT doesn't hire democrats, and this is no different.
Look at this comment section, and tell me this isn't an echo chamber.
Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#336Welcome Tom, Thanks for all the hard work you've done in secret and in advance for what you're about to do in open.
Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#337Many 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…
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Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
The words I chose are specifically meant to highlight the downsides. 1. Groupthink has a negative connotation of the downsides baked in. 2. "Hyper" conformity (or hyper anything) is already saying that it is too much. I think it's well known and appreciated that without diversity of thought and opinion, a group or organization makes possibly locally optimized, but poor decisions.
I know you were, and it’s troubling. You’re ascribing a sinister character to a literally normal phenomenon merely because you disagree with the outcome. And a normal distribution anticipates diversity within the sample: if there were no outliers, the distribution wouldn't look the way it does. This kind of thinking led to the term “mainstream media” becoming a pejorative term, even though it fairly represented the m…
But your way often leads to mediocrity. There are major success stories about being able to buck the consensus and trends and not be concerned with conformity. Including my own career success. But many other examples in many fields as well.
Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#339Many 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…
Welcome Tom!
Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
#340I think it's great to see more moderation from non-Americans. My biggest critique of this site is that the user base and moderation seems very biased with American perspectives to the detriment of the non-American user base and the quality of content as a whole.
dang is Canadian.
I say this as a Canadian -- So he's basically Canadian-lite culturally.
I want to see more moderation from people around the world, with less geographic and cultural proximity to the Bay area.