Thank you dang! It's been 7 years since I moved away from Slashdot. HN has kept me sane and informed.
The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
241–250 of 322 posts
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#242This 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…
The original codebase is at http://arclanguage.org/ and many forums have started with it over the years. One of these years we'll release an update of it that incorporates a lot of the changes we've made to HN.
> The original codebase is at http://arclanguage.org/ and many forums have started with it over the years.
> One of these years we'll release an update of it that incorporates a lot of the changes we've made to HN.
Out of curiosity, absent such a release, is there a public changelog anywhere? If not, that would be a great start.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#243HN reminds me of ye olde days of Usenet, where you browsed sci.space and learned orbital mechanics, or comp.lang.c or x.y.z just for fun.
The content isn't always enlightening, but most of it is, or at least intelligent and thought provoking.
Twitter is fine for following individuals, lwn.net for Linux specific stuff, even slashdot on occasion, although slashdot often ends up being a repeat of the stories that are here.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I've started using the Lists feature of Twitter a ton, carefully curating users who tend to post around specific topics that I'm interested in. Then I just poke my head in the appropriate list whenever I want to catch up on what's been happening in a given subject. Totally changed my Twitter experience.
> I've started using the Lists feature of Twitter a ton, carefully curating users who tend to post around specific topics that I'm interested in. Then I just poke my head in the appropriate list whenever I want to catch up on what's been happening in a given subject.
I've been doing the same (although I've actually been on a break from Twitter for over a year now). Care to share links to your lists?
BTW, it took me forever to realize that I didn't have to follow an account in order to put it in a list. I've been putting off a serious pruning (several thousand) of who I follow, and I wish there were better tools for doing that pruning.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#245I come from a very small town in Brazil in the middle of nowhere. I was interested in Tech since I was a kid, but had zero influence around me.
I was a police officer for many years when I decided to go to university and study computer science. There, by a recommendation of a great professor, I got introduced to Hacker News. First time I saw this website, my mind was blown by the amount of rich information and links pointing me to gold pages on the web I have never heard of.
But this was just the shallow surface. Once I discovered the comments section and started reading the threads, I was once again astonished by the rich content and discussions going on. Sometimes, I spend hours just reading brilliant comments here and learning from people way smarter than me.
Thanks for this community and the moderators for making this happen :D
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#246Thanks for flagging flame trolls like us. People tend to get carried away in a heat of discussion, but eventually return to the mean of civility after cool-down period. Other places just impose ban frivolously, which doesn't help long term, bans destroy the community, methinks. Moderate moderation like yours is the way to go, and I'm not saying it as a kiss ass. Edit: dang, what moderation tools do you think could be…
I do think that there is room for ML/NLP tools to be useful but we haven't done much with that yet. Probably looking through the flagged comments is the least favorite, as well as most repetitive and time consuming manual activity, for all the mods who do it.
Mods are reviewing every flagged comment?
I don't flag comments often, but I'll be even more careful now when I do if that's the case.
Suggestion: when flagging a comment, allow the flagger to state which guideline they think the comment violates (I believe both reddit and FB do this).
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#247HackerNews is my go to place for any type of tech question. Recently, I had RSI because of related sports injury. I learnt VIM shortcuts, bought Microsoft Egonomic keyboard and logi mouse based on suggestions here.
I am learning tones of stuff on technologies that I use daily.
I really wish I had like-minded friends in real life who are hackernews fans. Hit me up if anyone currently in or visits Dubai, UAE.
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Arc, yes. Unfortunately not, because we don't know how to write anti-abuse systems that keep working once people know what they are.
I get it, thanks. Instead, Could you write about them, rather than the code? I'm picturing lessons learned, don't try ABC it's a waste of time, and so on..
I'd actually like to see a series of 'lessons learned', or 'things we tried that didn't work' (including code, if possible/prudent).
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do think that there is room for ML/NLP tools to be useful but we haven't done much with that yet. Probably looking through the flagged comments is the least favorite, as well as most repetitive and time consuming manual activity, for all the mods who do it.
Mods are reviewing every flagged comment? I don't flag comments often, but I'll be even more careful now when I do if that's the case. Suggestion: when flagging a comment, allow the flagger to state which guideline they think the comment violates (I believe both reddit and FB do this).
I'm not sure how many of those flags are just misclicks or "I don't like this" button, but I guess the noise level is higher than expected
Re: The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)
#250As someone who has been dinged by dang, I appreciate moderation.
Agreed, a pointed comment by him if you are "having a bad day" helps.