Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

drewdevault.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 409 posts

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#231

Post by arkades »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #215
arkades wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to believe that it is a moral obligation of anyone with an audience/platform to provide that platform to anyone that wants to use it...? Specifically, you described “depriving (someone of an) audience” as the immoral act. Just to recontextualize that: if I have a blog, am I immoral for not allowing comments? Am I immoral for not allowing guest bloggers? Do I have a moral obligation to allow advertisement? Th…

I think a blog is a different enough medium that it renders the comparison meaningless. Hacker News is a website that posts user submissions. I wouldn't make this argument about your blog, but I might make it about Medium.

But they’re not a site that posts user submissions. They’re a site that posts certain types of submissions: that’s what distinguishes them from reddit, 4chan, voat, etc.

A failure to maintain that identity would fundamentally change their offering and lose them their audience. You make it sound like a trivial expenditure of Nothing more than a little bandwidth.

And you haven’t meaningfully distinguished it from a blog. Blogs host comments; they host guest posts, and multiple authors. The degree to which they’re one voice or many depends on their individual structure - and none of that contradicts your core moral statement about the immoral act being not letting people have a free-for-all on your private platform. You make a distinction without rationale for why some private platforms are allowed to curate their offerings, and why others are /immoral/ for doing skz

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#233

Post by [deleted] »

angersock wrote: post #181
tptacek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you'll be as successful as HN. Lobste.rs, which is run carefully by thoughtful people using software which is probably better than HN's, is much less successful. But that's the point.

Depends on what you consider successful. If the metric is raw numbers and impressions, HN is definitely the winner. If the metric is signal-to-noise for technical content, Lobsters is probably ahead. If the metric is user count, HN wins. If the metric is moderation transparency, Lobsters wins. Just depends what you're looking for.

[deleted]

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#234

Post by clinth »

ballenf wrote: post #162
tptacek wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people who are deeply concerned about sexism in this industry also flag those stories, because it only takes 2-3 misogynist trolls to create a 300-comment shitshow out of them. There are still kinds of threads that this site simply can't do well, and it's better we not pretend we can until the guidelines and mod tools evolve to actually make them work here.

> ... until the guidelines and mod tools evolve to actually make them work here. I think the "until" is "until all readers of this site share a single sociological view on controversial issues and/or lose all interest in having their view heard." Asking your moderation tools to solve societal problems or prevent a discussion forum from reflecting a raging societal debate is trying to hide from the problem. > it only…

> I get what you mean, but would argue that, "it only takes 2-3 trolls plus 300 people who respond to them to create a 300-comment shitshow". An ignored troll is a powerless troll. They get their power to disrupt from the responses, not their words.

I like this idea, but I don't think it's possible to get the shared agreement you discuss. I've never seen an online community where the hands-off, community-ignore method worked. Have you seen one?

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#235

Post by dang »

matt4077 wrote: post #206
bradleyjg wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The users are deciding. We are flagging these stories because we don't see the value in endless flamewars over the same subject. If you can't get enough of debates about sexism in SV there are lots of other places on the internet for that.

I understand how that is the right policy for HN. But I'm wondering if you consider it possible that you're in a position where you have a responsibility to sometimes surface these topics on HN? After all, for some of these topics it's exactly the people that won't go looking for them at other places on the internet where they may still make a difference. To use an example that's slightly less controversial: I think…

I think that's about right. That's why we turn off user flags on articles that are particularly substantive or contain significant new information. It's mostly the copycat and follow-up articles (of which there are many more) that lead to the repetitive flamewars, arguably because they're so repetitive themselves.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#236

Post by mbesto »

tptacek wrote: post #218
mbesto wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no paid submissions to HN I don't mean to derail your point (because it's valid) but I don't believe this statement is true. YC companies can pay[0] to get recruitment posts on the frontpage of HN. [0]Note - I'm almost certain YC companies pay for this in some form (wether by cash or some other form) and would be happy for a YC company to confirm/deny.

From conversations I've had with YC founders, I do not believe this is the case.

So how exactly do they get recruitment posts on the frontpage?

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#237

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

arkades wrote: post #231
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a blog is a different enough medium that it renders the comparison meaningless. Hacker News is a website that posts user submissions. I wouldn't make this argument about your blog, but I might make it about Medium.

But they’re not a site that posts user submissions. They’re a site that posts certain types of submissions: that’s what distinguishes them from reddit, 4chan, voat, etc. A failure to maintain that identity would fundamentally change their offering and lose them their audience. You make it sound like a trivial expenditure of Nothing more than a little bandwidth. And you haven’t meaningfully distinguished it from a blo…

>But they’re not a site that posts user submissions. They’re a site that posts certain types of submissions: that’s what distinguishes them from reddit, 4chan, voat, etc.

>A failure to maintain that identity would fundamentally change their offering and lose them their audience. You make it sound like a trivial expenditure of Nothing more than a little bandwidth.

They have rules and guidelines, and they set the overall topic by calling it Hacker News. Users do the rest by voting up stuff that they find relevant or interesting. This doesn't work everywhere, but it works here. I've seen it first hand by browsing my stats, posts that are off-topic don't make it far.

>And you haven’t meaningfully distinguished it from a blog. Blogs host comments; they host guest posts, and multiple authors.

Your blog is still curated. I can't make an account on your blog and post an article to it without being invited by you and presumably having you read and approve it. On HN, on the other hand, every submission is like this. If you make a "blog" where every article is submitted by users, then I'm going to give you the same speech.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#238

Post by eropple »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #188
eropple wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, to underline, we have a lot more than 2-3 misogynist trolls in these parts. Reflexive rich-white-dude defensiveness is perhaps HN's greatest challenge.

And you long for the day when it's your particular brand of racism and sexism that wins? Seriously, can you stop with the "white men are all racist and sexist and are priveleged so my racism and sexism towards them doesn't count", please. Do you not think your sort of attitude contributes heavily; that is, some people shouldn't be allowed to comment because of their race/sex.

> white men are all racist and sexist and are priveleged

We are; living in a racist and sexist society leaves its imprint and even the best-intentioned of us have racist and sexist baggage that we need to consciously and continually fight against. I'm sorry that that upsets you so. It exists, and it is real, and it is true, and that it upsets you does not change that it exists, and that it is real, and that it is true.

But for real: it's not that white men "can't comment." It's that white men have a listening problem in aggregate and that perhaps people who are not white men have perspectives that are deserving of being heard. Even if it means that you--and I--should give up our precious, precious megaphones for a sec.

Accepting and working on being mindful and decent does require effort. And it does mean that the "Kek de MAGA"s (how very subtle) of the world won't cheer you on. Somehow, though, those of us who give it an honest try seem to do alright without them.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#239

Post by dang »

matt4077 wrote: post #194
andrewguenther wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found moderation on HN to be a bit heavy handed recently. Specifically when it comes to the issue of sexism in SV. No matter the opinion, posts on this seem to get removed shortly after reaching the front page. Question for the mods: Why? It doesn't appear to be a bias towards either side. Is the perception just that people are tied of hearing about it? Why not let the users decide that?

HN's readership is a bit less progressive than what you'd expect from the age/education demographics–or at least than what I'd expect. See, for example, this very article calling out the moderation of a submission on anti-white racism in the restaurant industry, while there are probably dozens of stories buried each week exploring racism or sexism on the tech sector. Yes, some of those do make it to the front page. B…

> HN is far to the right compared even to

Pretty sure that's not true. IMO you're falling into the cognitive bias we all seem to have, of seeing the community as dominated by your ideological opposite. The other side sees it just the other way. Take a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915, and lots more at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=... and https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=....

> But in terms of /

We can't use such a metric. The magnitude of those problems is so large that there would be nothing else on the front page if we did.

HN is trying to be a specific kind of site—one that gratifies intellectual curiosity: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. I think it's ok for such a place to exist on the web, don't you? If so, many things follow. The site can't primarily be about litigating disputes or fighting for causes, even (especially) good causes. In fact it can't 'primarily' be about anything, because curiosity shrivels under repetition. Therefore HN's system (community + mods + software) is organized not to have too much, i.e. very much, of anything on the front page.

The issue isn't that HN suppresses discussion of e.g. sexism/gender in tech; it doesn't—there have been tons of threads, often large, often on the front page. The issue is that / is always, for any X, less than you would like. For most casual observers, "less than I would like" feels like "censored completely". Meanwhile the readers who don't like X have the mirror-image view and say "HN is overrun with X". It's all an undergraduate psych experiment basically.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#240

Post by avip »

andrewguenther wrote: post #134
flavio81 wrote: post #78

In this thread, some people are complaining of moderators downvoting (lowering the rank) of some submissions over others; and at least one person says "let the readers decide". I think that if I wanted a forum/news site where "the readers decide" and ONLY the readers decide, i'd go to Reddit. No thanks, i prefer HN due to the behind-the-scenes 'curation' or choice of content, which so far usually gives very interesti…

I've found moderation on HN to be a bit heavy handed recently. Specifically when it comes to the issue of sexism in SV. No matter the opinion, posts on this seem to get removed shortly after reaching the front page. Question for the mods: Why? It doesn't appear to be a bias towards either side. Is the perception just that people are tied of hearing about it? Why not let the users decide that?

Great. Let's keep this place technical. How is "sexism in SV" of any interest to a global tech-focused community?
Post reply on HN