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The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

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

#191

Post by Mezzie »

dang wrote: post #181
sveno wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News's biggest problem is the chilling effect. The long-timers know that if you write too well and people start inquiring about a "follow" feature with you in mind, it's only a matter of time before you get banned because you're "too young" (well, he isn't anymore) to have that kind of "success" and less articulate people feel bad about themselves. On politics, Hacker News itself isn't right-wing, at least mos…

I'm finding this a little hard to follow but I'd love to see an example of anyone we banned for writing well or being "too young".

Y'all never banned me and I was definitely an articulate, immature asshole with a victim complex.

I'm REALLY glad I don't remember my username from my high school years.

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

#192

Post by pasadenasunset »

awb wrote: post #186
jason-phillips wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tech is like card counting. If you actually figure the game out, you get punished and flushed out. Wouldn't this dynamic that you describe from your perspective exist in every industry?

Assuming there’s a “game” to be played, and you get pushed out, you probably didn’t understand the real game. In the card counting example, the game isn’t blackjack, the game is the house always wins. If you’re card counting and losing money, no one cares. I’ve been reasonably successful in tech and don’t know of any games besides the free market.

At least no games with underlying dynamics you would like to share, and I say that with a grin.

The discussion of moderation policies and topics in posting usually derive from a shared understanding of a forum as a group of people, rather than a trajectory where current community opinions in turn, create the future community.

There is also the origins of Hacker News as Startup News, which immediately creates a covariance constraint between seniority and topic. The only way this dynamism can be managed is having temporal aspects (e.g., boundaries, limits on accelerationism toward specific topics), included in moderating policies.

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

#194

Post by yamrzou »

Question for the mods (@dang):

Do you not experience some kind of information overload from monitoring all those stories and comments on HN? How are you able to handle all of that?

Otherwise I just want to say thank you for maintaining this forum and making sure it stays interesting.

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

#197

Post by Der_Einzige »

wormslayer666 wrote: post #105
optimalsolver wrote: post #4

I've noticed that all the online spaces I enjoy visiting are heavily moderated. Whenever I get linked to "free speech" loosely-moderated platforms, I usually hit the back button pretty quick.

It depends on what sort of content you're looking for. Reasoned discussion on contentious issues demands considerable moderation, but anonymous platforms are great for legitimate niche/curiosity-driven topics. For example of the second, there was a thread on /ck/ a few weeks back where some guy (probably a grad student; I'll never know) stumbled on a few $K of food lab equipment. Thread went on with a variety of expe…

That thread on /ck/ was legendary! I've also seen some pretty funny "ITT: Pretend we're HN" threads on /g/. The Overlap between 4chan and HN seems to be larger than it originally appears...

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

#198

Post by awb »

stronglikedan wrote: post #189
sveno wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only have 258 karma. You don't have to worry yet. When you get into the mid-thousands, that's when things get dicey. Tech is like card counting. If you actually figure the game out, you get punished and flushed out. If you keep gambling and losing and don't know why (because you're bad at what you're trying to do) there will be a seat at the table until everything is squeezed out of you.

> You only have 258 karma. And you only have 1 karma, so you're not qualified to say what you said in your previous post. Of course, my point is that I know how much karma you have, as much as you know how much karma any other person has, which is...you don't. And I've been here long enough to know that your original comment is getting downvoted, because it's largely full of false statements. Sure, you can cherry pic…

> I know how much karma you have, as much as you know how much karma any other person has, which is...you don't

FYI, clicking a username tells you have much karma someone else has.

For example, you have 4,258 karma: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=stronglikedan

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

#199

Post by WalterBright »

sveno wrote: post #164
0x4d464d48 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...there are far too many corporate shills, the good ones know they have to be careful." Huh. Today I learned I'm not one of the good ones.

You only have 258 karma. You don't have to worry yet. When you get into the mid-thousands, that's when things get dicey. Tech is like card counting. If you actually figure the game out, you get punished and flushed out. If you keep gambling and losing and don't know why (because you're bad at what you're trying to do) there will be a seat at the table until everything is squeezed out of you.

I have 51000 karma. I am not playing any game. I just enjoy posting here, and try to make interesting comments. I far prefer it to Reddit and Slashdot, and rarely bother with them anymore.

Probably all thanks to dang!

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

#200

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #199
sveno wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only have 258 karma. You don't have to worry yet. When you get into the mid-thousands, that's when things get dicey. Tech is like card counting. If you actually figure the game out, you get punished and flushed out. If you keep gambling and losing and don't know why (because you're bad at what you're trying to do) there will be a seat at the table until everything is squeezed out of you.

I have 51000 karma. I am not playing any game. I just enjoy posting here, and try to make interesting comments. I far prefer it to Reddit and Slashdot, and rarely bother with them anymore. Probably all thanks to dang!

I also have many unpopular views, and know I'm going to get downvoted plenty for them, but post them anyway.
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