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Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

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Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#181

Post by mettamage »

djhn wrote: post #165
throw_m239339 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there since around 2015 and the evolution of that forum and its population/opinion has been very interesting, to say to put it mildly... Remember when the biggest disagreements were about ORM & Frameworks? I miss those days. I didnt even mind the discussion about the ethics of Uber or Airbnb, but now, now it is different, & not for the better.

I've been here since around that time and to be honest, I haven't noticed much of a change for the worse. The world around us has changed, political life may have gotten slightly more complex, but the community feels just as friendly, curious and insightful.

Yea same for me. Nothing much has changed here. I guess it used to be a bit more technical? But just a bit (I miss the Dolphin emulator status updates - they got me hooked on the technical content posted on this site)

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#182

Post by dang »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #134
otterley wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're not spending enough time reading the comments on controversial stories. Disagreement is alive and well on HN.

I disagree. People will frequently say that downvoting is not for disagreeing, but in every controversial thread dissenting opinions are quickly downvoted and frequently flagged. Some recover, but many die or end up pushed down into obscurity. Mildly controversial opinions sometimes survive and get discussion, but anything past that rarely get a reply and just get downvoted and flagged into oblivion. This isn't exact…

Downvoting for disagreement has always been fine on HN. People sometimes assume otherwise because they're implicitly porting the rules from a larger site, but that's a mistake.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#183

Post by layer8 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #138
layer8 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoting and flagging is not moderation.

Flagging does seem to primarily be a tool for moderation. But for comments, at least, I've mostly not observed flagging being used to hide things that shouldn't be; if anything, I think flagging is underused on comments. (It's still regularly abused on stories as a downvote, perhaps in part because stories don't have downvotes. HN sometimes "rescues" stories that get over-flagged, but it's still a problem.)

Flagging isn’t done by moderators, it’s done by regular HN users.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#184

Post by Swenrekcah »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #141
theoryofx wrote: post #20

One thing that I appreciate about dang, and PG before him, is their intellectual honesty and strong sense of ethics. On the face of it, HN should be terrible. It's a forum owned an investment firm as promotion for their business. But because HN was started by an individual with real values, and has been operated day-to-day by individuals that followed in his tradition, its been capable of unreasonable greatness and r…

I was there since around 2015 and the evolution of that forum and its population/opinion has been very interesting, to say to put it mildly... Remember when the biggest disagreements were about ORM & Frameworks? I miss those days. I didnt even mind the discussion about the ethics of Uber or Airbnb, but now, now it is different, & not for the better.

The whole western world is different and not for the better since 2015. Erosion of public trust since then is tremendous and regrettable so it is not surprising that we miss the communities that once were.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#185

Post by J_Shelby_J »

hbn wrote: post #177
jdoliner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that HN's Overton window is probably on average 15-20% larger than most forums. That's not uniform across all topics though. So if you skew toward a particular set of topics it may feel like a typical forum, or even in some ways more constrained.

My issue is it seems like something has to only be a bit controversial to be completely hidden from everyone. There was the recent DF article about how Gruber thinks his articles are being artificially shitlisted and I can't help but agree? I don't necessarily think the mods have their fingers on the scale, but I wouldn't be surprised if the algorithm works in a way where if enough people flag something it gets autom…

I follow the HN subreddit and routinely see very active threads that aren’t in the feed.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#186

Post by bell-cot »

jdoliner wrote: post #108
theoryofx wrote: post #20

One thing that I appreciate about dang, and PG before him, is their intellectual honesty and strong sense of ethics. On the face of it, HN should be terrible. It's a forum owned an investment firm as promotion for their business. But because HN was started by an individual with real values, and has been operated day-to-day by individuals that followed in his tradition, its been capable of unreasonable greatness and r…

> On the face of it, HN should be terrible. It's a forum owned an investment firm as promotion for their business. I think it's at least as plausible that this is part of the magic that makes it good. HN is sufficiently "on the margin" that they don't have to do things like placate advertisers with their moderation policies. The mods like dang, tomhow and pg mostly care about HN as users rather than owners. > It woul…

Before even the "has a mission of its own" part, an independent non-profit needs to pay its bills. I suspect that dang & Co. aren't working for free. Similar for servers & internet connections & etc.

And I'd bet that few people here want to see ads, or start paying for their accounts.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#187

Post by mkl »

Teever wrote: post #88

I think it's great to see more moderation from non-Americans. My biggest critique of this site is that the user base and moderation seems very biased with American perspectives to the detriment of the non-American user base and the quality of content as a whole.

dang is Canadian.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#188

Post by JoshTriplett »

layer8 wrote: post #183
JoshTriplett wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flagging does seem to primarily be a tool for moderation. But for comments, at least, I've mostly not observed flagging being used to hide things that shouldn't be; if anything, I think flagging is underused on comments. (It's still regularly abused on stories as a downvote, perhaps in part because stories don't have downvotes. HN sometimes "rescues" stories that get over-flagged, but it's still a problem.)

Flagging isn’t done by moderators, it’s done by regular HN users.

I didn't say it was done by moderators, I said it was a tool for moderation. Flagging is the means by which regular HN users perform moderation activities, in addition to the actions available to the moderators.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#189

Post by layer8 »

airstrike wrote: post #162
layer8 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that flagging does not imply moderation. When enough people flag a comment, it becomes dead automatically. There is, separately, the case that a moderator “kills” an unacceptable comment, but then it only appears as [dead] I believe (unless it was also being flagged by people). Someone correct me if this is wrong.

Moderation by the community is still moderation.

Well, you can call it that, but there is not a singular will or policy behind what is getting flagged, and the HN “community” isn’t homogeneous. HN users can also “vouch” to counteract flagging. It only takes a single vouch to un-kill a comment.

Re: Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator

#190

Post by tomcam »

bell-cot wrote: post #186
jdoliner wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the face of it, HN should be terrible. It's a forum owned an investment firm as promotion for their business. I think it's at least as plausible that this is part of the magic that makes it good. HN is sufficiently "on the margin" that they don't have to do things like placate advertisers with their moderation policies. The mods like dang, tomhow and pg mostly care about HN as users rather than owners. > It woul…

Before even the "has a mission of its own" part, an independent non-profit needs to pay its bills. I suspect that dang & Co. aren't working for free. Similar for servers & internet connections & etc. And I'd bet that few people here want to see ads, or start paying for their accounts.

I hope dang and tomhow get rich doing this job. I'd happily pay for HN too.
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