The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#101

Post by alexchamberlain » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #99

The one thing I did notice in the article is that there is a a forum dedicated to outrageous things HN says. I mean, I always knew this is a public forum and whatnot, but I thought it has less mainstream appeal, which is the reason the conversation don't devolve easily into name calling if fallacies don't work ( or fallacies are called out for what they are ). edit: made it more generic

Somewhat ironically that hashtag seems to be dominated by a few people; that being said, they have identified people saying outrageous things.

Probably worth flagging rather than increasing its visibility?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#102

Post by dang » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

chrisandchips wrote: post #97

Dang's done a super great job, especially recently with some huge threads related to the election. I would like to raise one point that's tangentially related: why is it not easier to find a page explaining the community guidelines ? AFAIK you have to look them up yourself. The navbar has links to new, threads, past, comments, ask, show, jobs and submit, but none of them even give a clear redirect link to get to the…

They're in the footer on every page. Not enough?

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#103

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

alexchamberlain wrote: post #101

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #99

The one thing I did notice in the article is that there is a a forum dedicated to outrageous things HN says. I mean, I always knew this is a public forum and whatnot, but I thought it has less mainstream appeal, which is the reason the conversation don't devolve easily into name calling if fallacies don't work ( or fallacies are called out for what they are ). edit: made it more generic

Somewhat ironically that hashtag seems to be dominated by a few people; that being said, they have identified people saying outrageous things. Probably worth flagging rather than increasing its visibility?

Can you elaborate on identifying people? I typically try to keep things sufficiently vague, but I also do hold somewhat strong opinions on a few subjects.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#104

Post by rathel » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

doc_gunthrop wrote: post #52

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #38

When I first came to HN from reddit, I posted some jokey nonsense comment. A moderator gently scolded me. I really disliked it. Now, I see the wisdom of keeping the jokes to a minimum and focusing in thoughtful discussion. So thank you, mods.

That's what impressed me when I first came across HN - the signal-to-noise ratio. The comments sections were always filled with thoughtfully written comments that provided useful insights into interesting topics. Thank you @dang for your diligence and commitment to the task.

For me the noise is still there, even if it takes another form. Jokes, puns and nastiness are swapped for hacker-y style rants (we know how idiosyncratic many of hackers are) or people who talk about things they lack the knowledge of.

Ironically, under front page HN submissions where comments would give some context, often there are none. Who upvoted them all the way to the front page? People who want to feel intelligent? Edit: this may be related to the moderator's override function where they put some submissions manually on the front page.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#105

Post by chrisweekly » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

> "[dang] later told me that he sees frustration at work as part of the DNA of Hacker News. “The instinct that there simply has to be a better way to build systems, and the yearning to connect with it,” he said. “If you can’t do that at your job, and few can, then you can at least dream and read and argue about it on the Internet. Hacker News is the inverse image of many people’s jobs, overlaid on top of each other—an escape valve for frustrated idealists.”

^ My favorite line in the whole piece. It resonates.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#106

Post by myself248 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

augusto-moura wrote: post #84

rv-de wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

username checks out

this is a thread about nonsense jokey comments, have you learned nothing? haha

Remember your roots, you insensitive clod! ;)

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#107

Post by chrisweekly » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #32

Thanks dang! You've helped keep HN readable, corrected countless title and link errors, and prevented heated discussions from devolving into fights. I also am super thankful for your help getting my "Show HN" post to the front page. We all appreciate you.

Seconding the props for Dan -- and reminding folks to thank Sam (the quiet one), too!

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#108

Post by bxk1 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #82

When I first discovered HN, it was like a breath of fresh air compared to Reddit etc. I have since lost faith. HN likes to masquerade as some sort of upscale establishment, high and above the petty squabbles of Eslewhere, but in the end this place too devolves into a predictable echo chamber just like the rest of them, when it comes to any topic on which people have varied opinions. This is not a place for dissenting…

> for more than a year I have been watching perfectly fine comments getting buried almost instantly.

Apart from an obvious problem of too many people having downvoting privileges, mods here also silently downweight some accounts even though they leave perfectly good comments. So there are two parts of this problem: mods being assholes towards some people regardless of their comments and mods letting too many people downvote comments. Same problem with flagging, except that flagging doesn't just make some discussions taboo, it also provokes mods to come up with a reason to issue a warning to silence such discussions even more if they feel like it.

But let's be honest, HN was never a place for dissenting views or "intellectual curiosity" as they used to say, it was always a very US, Silicon Valley capitalist-owned place, where the mods, YC tried to push people into one or another direction, push people to think certain way, suppress and disallow some viewpoints under various pretenses. I'm sure you've seen them claim guidelines breaking of people expressing some views, but never the opposite views if the views happened to be a common SV ideology (for example, I don't think I've ever seen an "let's ban sexist words" diversity activism being warned as "ideological flamebait" or such activists being banned, but it did happen with people holding the opposite views, just like it did with the guy from Google). All of this nudges people into echo chambers.

I'll add that it used to have more technical discussions a few years ago, but not so much anymore, you have to go to lobsters and reddit for that, even if they suck, they are at least still there.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#109

Post by sonofhans » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

Thank you, dang! More than anything, what makes this place a joy to frequent is the quality of the discourse. Your guiding hand is visible in the curation of both articles and comments.

Community sites like HN fall into many common pathologies. Your laser focus on avoiding those traps, and intentionally chasing positive models, has me always looking forward to loading the site and diving into the discourse.

Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

#110

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #81

yowlingcat wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. I was having a really bad day several months ago and in a spat with a higher karma user who I really thought was in the wrong. @dang stepped in and just about banned me -- but stopped short and said this: > There's clearly a pattern here. I'm not going to ban you now because you've also posted good comments, but please don't post any more personal attacks to HN, and please avoid tedious tit-for-tat entanglements…

dang banned me for making a snarky, snipey comment about someone else's moral compass, and he was correct to do so. He also let me back in after I apologized via email, which I appreciate.

While I have never been banned, I have been warned several times by dang about my behavior and I deserved every one of them. It seems to have worked too, because a lot of times I'll write a nasty comment and there will be this little voice in my head asking "what's dang going to think of this?" and I'll either edit it, not post it, or delete it.