An Update on Hacker News • Hacker News Board

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#221

Post by morganvachon » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 9:56 PM UTC

gohjo wrote: post #198

dang wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be right. I'll look at the comment later and see if I should have written it differently. There's no time to reflect just now. I try hard not to let personal irritation leak through in my HN comments, but I do fail at it. The most I can claim is a willingness to correct mistakes.

It's wildly inappropriate to lob a blanket accusation of fraud against every single person who has ever complained about your moderation. People have wildly divergent views as to what's appropriate, what's a little rude, and what's over the line. This means that even if you really truly believe that there was NEVER a mistake made during moderation, that some people will truly believe what they said. Good moderation r…

> Good moderation requires a ton of empathy and kindness.

Which is sadly lacking among many, if not most, moderators of online communities across the net. I'm not saying that's the case with dang; in fact, I wouldn't know. But it's a thankless job that is akin to working in a call center without pay. It takes a strong personality to keep one's head above the layer of filth floating atop the waters of discourse.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#222

Post by etcet » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 9:56 PM UTC

stock_toaster wrote: post #121

cs702 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than once, I've unintentionally downvoted comments I meant to upvote, upvoted comments I meant to downvote, and/or clicked on a button I didn't mean to click (that includes clicking on 'reply' after writing something that doesn't really add any value and almost instantly regretting it). So I agree, it would be great to have more/better undo options!

Agreed. I wish the up/down vote links were on opposite sides (I would prefer they were bigger too, but at least spacing them would be preferable). Something more like this.. ▲ cs702 31 minutes ago ▼ | link note: they are supposed to be the same size.. oddly unicode down triangle is rending larger for me.

I actually don't agree with this from a UX perspective. The downvote arrow is currently in a predictable position. If you move it after the timestamp, it will be in a variable position. Although, I can imagine how you could argue that the downvote arrow should not be easy to hit.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#223

Post by bootload » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 9:56 PM UTC

throwit99 wrote: post #126

vectorpush wrote: post #111

How does HN's moderation staff feel about users who are dead, completely oblivious to it, but who continue to post, sometimes for years after the fact without any kind of warning that they are wasting their time. Sometimes I check the comment history of these dead posters; 80% of the time it appears like they are a genuine troll who was correctly moderated out of the community, however, a significant portion of the t…

I had this happen to me when I critiqued a YC backed company. Had a few thousand in 'meaningless internet karma points'. You pretty soon realise after a few further comments anyway, so I doubt it's actually effective. It's pretty mean spirited though - generally a "douchebag" move. It'd be like having a bad employee, but instead of firing him, or discussing his work, just don't bother paying him any more. After being…

"... After being hellbanned I actually realised that commenting on internet forums is toxic, generally a waste of time, and not productive. So I quit. ..."

Yes.

... But for those that like spending time commenting, I would have thought following a subreddit model would work better here, with the growth. Spread the power out. ..."

Agreed.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#224

Post by bootload » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 9:58 PM UTC

"... I’d also like to thank dang and sctb for all the work they’ve done as moderators and with software to increase story and comment quality. ..."

This is a good point and should be acknowledged. I was personally contacted on how to improve HN. I've yet to get back to you @dang, replies are more fully formed.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#225

Post by tptacek » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 9:58 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #160

tptacek wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a reasonable take on what downvoting is for, but the HN take is that it's better to downvote a disagreement than to write a noisy bad comment to express the same disagreement.

> is that it's better to downvote a disagreement than to write a noisy bad comment to express the same disagreement No, quite the opposite. (See I wrote a comment explaining that I disagree, I didn't just click the arrow. Much more valuable to you and the reader.) And that's why you are wrong, by saying why you disagree you might (rarely) change the posters mind, or more likely change a 3rd readers mind about the top…

I don't know who you're arguing with, but I was making a positive statement, not a normative one.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#226

Post by gohjo » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 9:58 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #220

gohjo wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wildly inappropriate to lob a blanket accusation of fraud against every single person who has ever complained about your moderation. People have wildly divergent views as to what's appropriate, what's a little rude, and what's over the line. This means that even if you really truly believe that there was NEVER a mistake made during moderation, that some people will truly believe what they said. Good moderation r…

I agree with this, but I think it's worth noting that the prompt here was someone making a specific claim. One doesn't need to believe they have made no mistakes to be certain they've never made a particular mistake, and there's significantly less room for differences in interpretation (though that's not to say there's none).

I was responding to this part of dang's post:

If users could look at the actual record, their perennial sob story of perfectly reasonable behavior struck down by bullying censors would evaporate. So they make new accounts and post statements designed to be unanswerable.

I interpreted that as dang attributing essentially every complaint to malice, and simultaneously dismissing all other explanations.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#227

Post by dang » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

gohjo wrote: post #198

dang wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be right. I'll look at the comment later and see if I should have written it differently. There's no time to reflect just now. I try hard not to let personal irritation leak through in my HN comments, but I do fail at it. The most I can claim is a willingness to correct mistakes.

It's wildly inappropriate to lob a blanket accusation of fraud against every single person who has ever complained about your moderation. People have wildly divergent views as to what's appropriate, what's a little rude, and what's over the line. This means that even if you really truly believe that there was NEVER a mistake made during moderation, that some people will truly believe what they said. Good moderation r…

It's probably a lesson to me that the one time I didn't hedge by saying "almost" or something like that, someone objects to my "blanket accusation". Actually, I originally wrote "almost never" (or something similar). But then I realized I couldn't actually remember a case where someone provided a specific link to back up his or her grand claim of why they were banned. So in a fit of impetuousness I lopped off the "almost". I did leave in "nearly always", though.

> Good moderation requires a ton of empathy and kindness.

I try, but don't always succeed. Thanks for the reminder. I appreciate it.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#228

Post by StevePerkins » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

vectorpush wrote: post #111

How does HN's moderation staff feel about users who are dead, completely oblivious to it, but who continue to post, sometimes for years after the fact without any kind of warning that they are wasting their time. Sometimes I check the comment history of these dead posters; 80% of the time it appears like they are a genuine troll who was correctly moderated out of the community, however, a significant portion of the t…

It's an interesting idea. After all, if someone truly is a deliberate troll, they would simply be creating new account(s) to evade moderation anyway.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#229

Post by pash » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #176

tikhonj wrote: post #139

Flagging seems like the solution to toxic comments, and should be more encouraged. At the same time, this means it overlaps with downvoting—but only one use of downvoting. Really, the meaning of downvoting on HN is somewhat confused and muddled: is it a "flag lite"? Is it a way of disagreeing? Is it a way to push worse content to the bottom? Is it just the opposite of an upvote? Any one of these would be reasonable,…

My position is that downvotes should not exist. There are three ways to view posts and comments: A. you agree with it, and appreciate it, so you upvote it to give it more visibility because that is how this whole system works - popular stuff should rise to the top, and an upvote is a measure of popularity. If you see popular stuff but have something to add, you will usually upvote and comment on it. B. a comment or p…

The primary effect of upvoting a submission is to make it sort higher relative to its present position; the main effect of a downvote is to make it sort lower.

So downvotes are a mechanism to add information about your preferred (partial) ordering of comments in a thread. Upvotes alone only get you halfway there.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#230

Post by etherael » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:02 PM UTC

gohjo wrote: post #184

dang wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever notice how people who make claims about why they got banned never provide links to the posts in question? That's because their claims are nearly always false. If users could look at the actual record, their perennial sob story of perfectly reasonable behavior struck down by bullying censors would evaporate. So they make new accounts and post linkless statements designed to be unanswerable. We don't ban people be…

No, here's what you do: 1) you ban people who are rude and who you disagree with philosophically, while you do NOT ban the equally rude people who you agree with. For evidence of the above, look at users like etherael (and his other names; not sure if he tors/vpns or if you can find them), who are raging assholes on a semi-routine basis, but who aren't banned because Libertarian BitCoin Lover matches your values. And…

The worst I ever do is respond rudely to people who have already attacked me, and even there I try to avoid doing so. As for using other names that's just flatly false, as is any gloating about baiting people into flamewars and laughing when they get banned. I haven't even used irc in over a year.

Basically I have no idea what you're talking about.