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An Update on Hacker News

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Re: An Update on Hacker News

#251

Post by PavlovsCat »

dang wrote: post #227
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…

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 "al…

For what it's worth.. I don't even read that much, and I've not been here for that long, but I often was impressed by how much you actually do engage and do seem to care, a lot, to do right by everyone, in public. To say you lack empathy and kindness as a moderator in general would be just silly. I say this as someone who strongly dislikes hellbanning and even grey text (I still think slashdot nailed it with voluntary, customizable filtering), so you know I mean it :P

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#252

Post by jrochkind1 »

opendais wrote: post #159
eksith wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your thoughts on this episode? https://jcs.org/notaweblog/2012/06/13/hellbanned_from_hacker...

> The guidelines (as you probably already knew) also say that if you have a question about moderation, send us an email instead of posting about it on the site. So it sounds like got banned for refusing to follow the guidelines?

I don't see that in the guidelines, nor do I see an email address to contact anyone in the guidelines (or anywhere else).

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#253

Post by facepalm »

rsync wrote: post #112

Is this a reasonable place to plead with people to stop the practice of meta-commentary on downvotes ? I am sick and tired of seeing the scoring system injected into the comment thread: "let the downvotes begin" "EDIT: you can downvote all you want, but ..." "EDIT: not sure why I'm being downvoted, but ..." ... and so on. Just comment and respond, don't add all manner of meta-commentary on voting and the score system…

Well it insults peoples feelings if they are being downvoted. It seems unrealistic to me to expect that they just accept the humiliation, even if it would be the rational thing to do. (I'm guilty of meta-commenting, too).

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#254

Post by FooBarWidget »

dang wrote: post #69
rspeer wrote: post #37

> To prevent abuse, moderators review flagged stories and comments and revoke flagging privileges from users who flag inappropriately. This seems like one of the cases where HN's moderation is both draconian and completely opaque. I can't flag comments, and I have no idea why. I certainly don't think of myself as an abusive user. Maybe I accidentally clicked the "flag" link once. If that gets flagging privileges remo…

As other users have pointed out, to flag a comment you have to click on 'link' to go to the comment's item page [1]. I don't know why PG designed it this way but have always assumed it was a speed bump to reduce impulsive flagging, since flags are more powerful than downvotes. We never remove flagging privileges because of just one flag. The concept of a mistake is all too familiar over here. 1. https://hn.algolia.co…

There was one time when I accidentally clicked on 'flag'. I meant to click on the 'comments' link, but I was on my phone and the link was too small so I ended up clicking on 'flag'. I couldn't find a way to undo it. It seems unfair if my flagging rights get revoked because of that.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#255

Post by tptacek »

glimcat wrote: post #175
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…

* 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. * When that kind of response comes from the site's moderator, I really don't see the level of toxicity i…

I'll go ahead and call Dan a friend, display my "not a shill for YC" bona fides, vouch for Dan as not a toxic person, and go on to criticize him for being so concerned about the appearance of toxicity that he's backing down on an issue he should stand his ground over. If he says HN moderation won't hellban someone for criticizing a YC company, take it to the bank.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#256

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

Shivetya wrote: post #143
chrisblackwell wrote: post #129

I would love to see them lower the threshold for down-voting. I've only got 200+ karma, and it's hard for me to get more. I can't be on here all day commenting, and being the first to submit articles. If I have something important to say, I comment, otherwise, I mostly consume. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to download a comment I don't agree with or find offensive.

Well I have posting a lot lends itself to more karma than not, as in eventually I write something intelligent and interesting enough for people to up vote. The majority of my comments sit pretty at whatever the default is with an occasional soapbox that I post knowing it will get nuked. As far as stories, sometimes you can post too early and another will follow with a similar story and it runs up, submit what falls u…

"Myself, my wish list for HN is a feature I can flag stories for my later review; a save feature like reddit"

Are you aware that upvoting a story saves it? You can access 'saved stories' via your profile. On one hand, you might argue that overloading the 'upvote' function isn't quite what you want, but the counter argument is that if a story seems interesting enough for you to want to read lead, the upvote's probably deserved.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#257

Post by tptacek »

gohjo wrote: post #226
dllthomas wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A misleading summary, since you're the one who introduced the idea of "malice" and "fraud". Dan's claim admits to HN users who believe they've been hellbanned for criticizing YC companies. Yours doesn't.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#258

Post by danielweber »

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…

IF someone is a genuine troll, then hell-banning is a great way of dealing with it, because it maximizes the time wasted by the troll and minimizes the time used by the moderator.

However, if the person isn't actually out-and-out to mess with your site, it sucks. I've seen lots of communities go down the tubes because the moderators get busy with life, and then Something Happens On The Forum, and moderators passive-aggressively go "fine, we're just gonna act like this, and if you don't want us to do that, then you should make the community act better!" Basically announcing that they are going to put in minimal effort to moderation, and the community definitely notices.

Professional moderation, like HN uses, seems like the best way to go.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#259

Post by makmanalp »

glimcat wrote: post #175
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…

* 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. * When that kind of response comes from the site's moderator, I really don't see the level of toxicity i…

I don't even think that answer was even that bad, especially when compared to the parent. Here was a wild and personal accusation with no support at all, not even anecdotal, and pretty toxic itself.

Replying courteously even to baseless and ranty accusations is probably a good idea, but I can't say I'd blame someone for not doing it.

I see the mod(s?) deal with this kind of conspiracy accusation almost on a daily basis, and I can definitely see how patience can wear thin when every nut does that. Dang implying that this accusation was baseless was probably rash, but that's the only thing I see even remotely out of line here.

Moderation is a pretty thankless job, and like sysadmins, people never appreciate you for getting things to work right when they work right. The definition of success is invisibility to users. But the second it goes even a bit wrong, it's a shitstorm. Here's yet another piece of empathy that one needs to consider.

Re: An Update on Hacker News

#260

Post by facepalm »

A lot of effort to get rid of people, not so much effort to attract them. Maybe it's not needed because the site is so popular. But it seems to contradict the other messages where they try to encourage everybody to apply to YC, especially the people who feel like they are not suited to it.

It's a bit funny if you consider these algorithms might be part of the selection process for YC (consciously or unconsciously) - have they really nailed the detection of trolls? Maybe eventually the algorithms will align so well with the spirit of YC that they can eliminate the interview process :-)

I for one feel unwanted (it's not my first account - some got banned, one I somehow retired after a couple of years). I long for another news source, and also for open discussion.

In general discussion does not seem to be welcome, as there are mechanisms to prevent deep threads. That's maybe OK, they want to be a news site, not a discussion site. But it leaves a void to be filled.

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