Props to the Mod Squad. What they're doing is working. An army of bots couldn't do it better. Never underestimate the power of anthropogenic cognitive input, a.k.a. people thinking about stuff.
The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
121–130 of 322 posts
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will join. I was shadow-banned or something years ago and he told me I am posting into the void. Was really nice to know.
So he gets to shadowban you and then get credit for telling you he issued a secret crazy punishment?
1. I don't think it was him. He told me a while after I was banned.
2. I got warnings beforehand and deserved it.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're in the footer on every page. Not enough?
I've been reading this site for almost 10 years and never noticed them until you just pointed it out. I don't think many people look at the footer. :) (They're also not in the footer of the comment page and a link in the otherwise empty header could be useful for new users.)
Good point!
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#124Thanks 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.
What help is available to get show hn posts to the front page?
Following their post history, it looks like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#125When 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 d…
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Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#126When 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…
This did not happen overnight; for more than a year I have been watching perfectly fine comments getting buried
There's a pandemic on. Voting has been a bit wonky this year, probably because of the pandemic. People are cranky and scared and yadda.
But normally HN is much more tolerant of dissent than most online spaces, assuming it's done right. Rants that call other members names or that implicitly or explicitly suggest "This will be downvoted because you are all bad people" or similar is not how to do that.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#127Dang'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?
Oh, indeed. Never seen them, but I think I never paid attention to any footer so far, so maybe they could be more highlighted.
On the other hand, like usual, the people who should read them the most, are probably the least likely to do so. Also the forum is somewhat self-regulating now?
I read quite often, when someone misbehaves, others chime in and ask them nicely to not do that here.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#128> site’s anti-abuse systems, many of which Bell and Gackle have written themselves.
That sounds interesting! How were these built? In the same Arc language? Any chance this can be open sourced?
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#129I got slapped around by a large trout, I mean, by dang, once.
Rather than getting annoyed, as would often happen elsewhere, I was ashamed. Because dang was right and I was wrong.
Thanks for that.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#130> site’s anti-abuse systems, many of which Bell and Gackle have written themselves. That sounds interesting! How were these built? In the same Arc language? Any chance this can be open sourced?
In Arc, yes.
Unfortunately not, because we don't know how to write anti-abuse systems that keep working once people know what they are.