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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)

#231

Post by Shared404 »

awb wrote: post #198
stronglikedan wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I think the implication is that you don't know how many accounts into HN someone is.

For example, I could make a burner and appear to have 0 karma, but still have however much I've got on this account - much like sveno appears to have done.

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

#232

Post by dredmorbius »

fallingknife wrote: post #220
dredmorbius wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usenet, mailing lists, numerous BBSes, and any number of earlier Web forums look on your assertion with bemusement. Reddit claimed free speech as a value in its early years. That sentiment has evolved, for all the usual reasons.[1] It is possible to host a wide range of significant views without becoming overtly hostile to the majority of the population, and the viewpoints held by those. Reddit was in no way "the ori…

I should say the last universal free speech platform. It's a cesspit anyway. Not sure how you can blame that one on freedom of speech.

I'd disagree with the first sentence as well.

My main complaint with Reddit is that the direction it's been taking the site over the past five years or so, and more pointedly the improvements it's not made, are far divorced from where I'd like to see it go.

Reddit wastes my time and does not reward time spent on site with valuable insights. Not strictly for cultivating misinformation and disinformation, though that's a fair-sized piece of my concern. I'm more concerned that it simply kills good conversation or prevents it from arising in the first place.

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

#233

Post by WalterBright »

Akronymus wrote: post #227
WalterBright wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 made one submission that got a LOT of traction. which got me to around 1k karma. Karma is useless.

> Karma is useless

Exactly. I can't even trade it for a cuppa coffee.

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

#234

Post by nkurz »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #224

The secret that nobody tells you about HN is that it's not moderated by dang and sctb, but by dang, sctb and all users. In a sort of emergent way by users, of course, because we just downvote the kinds of comments we don't want to see (and some probably actively look out for comments that break the site guidelines) and upvote the ones we want to see. Hence the constant chatter about the "hive mind" etc. I guess. If y…

Good point about user involvement, but I'd wager that there are at least 3 more "secrets".

The first is that a lot of the moderation is done algorithmically. Things like "flamewar detector" cool down stories that look like they are getting too many comments.

The second is that user flagging plays a very large role. For better or worse, if some tiny percentage of users think a comment or story is inappropriate for the site, it disappears. User vouching then plays a smaller but also important role in reviving some of these.

The last is that 'sctb' is no longer involved, and 'dang' is the sole remaining moderator. Sometimes I think he encourages people to believe that 'sctb' is still involved because he'd be embarrassed if people knew how much time and effort he puts into the site.

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

#235

Post by astrange »

edgyquant wrote: post #165
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are easy to avoid howerver. Not participating in them and upvoting other contents solve the issue at least for yourself.

Incorrect. This is what we were told about Reddit as we watched it become basically unusable as a platform. Voting alone isn’t a proper way to guarantee quality discussion (the opposite actually.)

Reddit is essentially the only platform left, which makes it a difficult example of an unusable one. I think it's actually gotten so big that its old problems (every reply being the same joke) were solved by having new users voting that don't all like the same jokes.

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

#236

Post by astrange »

axiomsEnd wrote: post #70
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.

Slate Star Codex put it nicely "The moral of the story is: if you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong."

Which is funny since it's an accurate description of his comment section, although I'm sure he knows that.

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

#237

Post by astrange »

password4321 wrote: post #117
blurker wrote: post #9

I appreciate the repost. It's quite timely for me, because I had recently been reading and participating in a post about HN's apparent toxicity. This has helped me to gain some more perspective on the topic. Especially about how moderation is done. I'm really impressed by the moderators, I honestly had no idea how many people were moderating HN or how they did things. I admire the patience and care it sounds like the…

I missed it, thanks for the heads-up. I love you, Hacker News, but you’re toxic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30349222 2022-02-15

HN is actually quite a lot less toxic than it was a few years ago. I'm not sure why, but I think the extremely cynical/100% rude communication style people just left for some reason.

Even Mr. management-by-perkele Linus has lightened up these days.

Don't know what they're all doing now, I would've said crypto but whenever I meet those people they're unreasonably positive.

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

#238

Post by jl2718 »

tptacek wrote: post #43
jl2718 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seek the truth unconditionally, or only truth that fits within your pre-conceived notions of acceptability? Can you imagine a society where an objective truth was unacceptable, and denial of that truth was harmful to themselves or others?

Why bother making an argument that pretends people can't see the difference between 4chan /pol/ and MetaFilter? You don't even have to like MetaFilter to see that they're not the same species of site, and that the differences have nothing to do with a search for the truth.

I’m unaware of the similarities actually.

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

#239

Post by DoItToMe81 »

robertakarobin wrote: post #16
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.

Yes, in general "free speech" platforms seem to quickly turn into Alt-Right platforms that are, ironically, heavily moderated. (Looking at you, Voat)

Voat was subject to a campaign planned by multiple neo-nazi communities, particularly 8chan's /pol/, to make the site unusable for non-nazis. It involved mass claiming any boards that could possibly be popular and giving them an explicitly white nationalist spin.

I can't really blame them for not stepping up to the plate and saying 'fuck off', since the genesis of the site had to do with Reddit overmoderation, and even appearing to step into the same shoes could have had killed the site.

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

#240

Post by DoItToMe81 »

KerrAvon wrote: post #132
fallingknife wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because Reddit was the original free speech platform, and you could find anything from any or no political leaning. Then they dropped free speech and kicked off right leaning content. So of course the alternatives quickly go right. If they had kicked off left wing content all of the free speech sites would be left, and you couldn't talk about your favorite TV show without going into the relative representatio…

Pretty sure right-leaning content per se is still available on reddit and what's actually banned is outright Nazism, racism, violence, etc. Lefty content featuring coordinated politcal violence would also get banned, if it existed.

Many lefty subs were banned or permanently quarantined for support of the USSR, and one was even banned for saying slaves killing their owners was justified in the context of pre-abolition America. I don't think it's about "coordinated political violence", it's about clearing out the site so that it's a safer place for advertisers and investors.
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