Cool write up. I love HN
The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
151–160 of 322 posts
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can it? Last I used it (which was a long time ago) Twitter itself added noise to my feed.
> Twitter itself added noise to my feed. Agreed for the actual Twitter site, but it doesn't seem to happen nearly as much with Tweetdeck. (In fact, I'm not sure Tweetdeck even shows ads.) https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/
One of these days someone at Twitter will remember they bought Tweetdeck and start messing with it in the same way they do for the main site and apps, but until then it’s fantastic.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#153I love this article, and it's one of the things I point colleagues to, every time I introduce them to HN.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you're soliciting them, here's a few concrete suggestions: - Avatars. A consistent, recognizable image can go a long way from transforming a faceless internet post into something closer to a person you recognize and would hesitate to harm. With enough time and exposure, usernames can work for this (everyone recognizes when tptacek, or moxie, or you post), but avatars supercharge it. People hate changes to the s…
I don't think we'd go for #1 because it's core to HN that it's a text-only site. And #2 is too shaming. We've found over the years that under punishing people (relative to what they expect) is more effective. There's a nice user report about that somewhere in the current thread. (edit: actually several now, which is pretty cool) #3 I think is a good suggestion though. We should have some means whereby users can exalt…
Maybe you should only be able to exalt someone once every three months, so you’d use it wisely. Otherwise it’d devolve into an annoyance like reddit’s new awards system.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#155I really appreciate @dang for such an attentive hard work. He definitely deserves kudos. But here's the rub. You will not see this post. I have been secretely ghosted out so all my comments goes to bottom no matter how thoughful or informative it may be. There is no way for me to de-ghosted. He or other mod probably did this to me for some reason I don't even know or remember. The moderation at HN is like life sentense that you don't even know why and when you got it and then cannot be challanged.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Twitter can have a very high signal-to-noise ratio if you follow the right people.
I followed a lot of economists (ie Robert Reich, Krugman, etc) thinking they would post interesting economics related content. They do, but it turns out that they are ordinary humans who like posting the same tweets (and rants) that I would post. I don't think Twitter can have the same signal to noise ratio as a well moderated forum like HN, even if you follow the "right" people, because the format of the site incent…
HN tends to devalue the individual, and value the content. (E.g. high quality comment by a not famous person)
Twitter seems to value the individual, but devalue the content. (E.g. low quality posts by a famous person)
The former is more meritorious, inasmuch as the vote base can accurately judge a comment. The latter is more consistent, in that popular people stay popular (and admittedly, are popular for a reason).
Personally, I prefer the HN-style model, but I also believe it only works as long as the ratio of HN-encultured users to bad / average actors stays above a certain threshold. From a technical and vote system perspective, HN isn't that different than Reddit: what makes it HN is the culture and community.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#157This place is amazing, and I learned so much about a variety of topics. Most of my MD colleagues use Twitter or Facebook, where the signal-to-noise is much, much lower. I assume there have been plenty of spin-offs from HN (I would LOVE to have a similar forum for discussing medical issues; Can I fork the codebase somehow?), but I do think the secret sauce is moderation. Also, politically, I'm "an enlightened centrist…
I wonder how many doctors browse HN... Sometimes I find some great posts by MDs here and it's really interesting.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#158I really appreciate @dang for such an attentive hard work. He definitely deserves kudos. But here's the rub. You will not see this post. I have been secretely ghosted out so all my comments goes to bottom no matter how thoughful or informative it may be. There is no way for me to de-ghosted. He or other mod probably did this to me for some reason I don't even know or remember. The moderation at HN is like life senten…
For what it’s worth, you aren’t invisible.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#159Except for the rich insulting the poor. Dang allows rich people to say some fucked up shit, but if you defend your honor in that situation, you are the asshole. Classism exists everywhere.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#160I really appreciate @dang for such an attentive hard work. He definitely deserves kudos. But here's the rub. You will not see this post. I have been secretely ghosted out so all my comments goes to bottom no matter how thoughful or informative it may be. There is no way for me to de-ghosted. He or other mod probably did this to me for some reason I don't even know or remember. The moderation at HN is like life senten…
I see this comment.