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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)

#291

Post by dang »

brunojppb wrote: post #245

I 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…

That's great to read. Very glad you found your way here! HN has connected many people with their 'tribe' over the years, both online and in person with each other. I think that is the best aspect of what PG created with this site. I also think that we could maybe find new ways to encourage more real-world connections. It feels to me like a lot of potential energy could turn kinetic if that happened.

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

#292

Post by dang »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #240

If you Unban me things would be slightly less lonely!

We can't do that yet because you're still posting too many unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. But if you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

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

#293

Post by js2 »

dang wrote: post #284
js2 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to flag submissions by accident and I’ve definitely done that and had to unflag them. I flag submissions on purpose fairly often when I feel they are really poor quality, spam, or way off-topic for HN. I also flag submissions where the discussion has gone off the rails. Flagging a comment takes extra work because you have to click through to the comment. I’ve never done that by accident and tried to only do…

Should we add a temporary "unhide" link that appears after you hide a story? If so, where should it appear?

Having the hide link right next to "N comments" makes it really easy to tap by accident. Then to unhide, you have to click through to your preferences to get to the "hidden" link.

Reddit uses this order:

    N comments | share | save | hide | give award | report | crosspost
I guess my preference would be for HN to use a similar order:

    N comments | N points by   | hide | flag
Of course, if you make this change, half the readers will hate it and insist you change it back. :-)

I'm not sure that "flag" and "hide" need to be on the main page at all. You could show those only after clicking through to the submission?

(I should probably just switch to one of the many HN reader apps.)

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

#294

Post by DanBC »

dang wrote: post #291
brunojppb wrote: post #245

I 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…

That's great to read. Very glad you found your way here! HN has connected many people with their 'tribe' over the years, both online and in person with each other. I think that is the best aspect of what PG created with this site. I also think that we could maybe find new ways to encourage more real-world connections. It feels to me like a lot of potential energy could turn kinetic if that happened.

Have you heard of Randomised Coffee Trials?

Here's an example of one (healthcare) community that try them: https://q.health.org.uk/community/rcts/

> How does it work?

> Every member who signs up will be sent the name of another randomly-chosen member on the 1st of every month. Each pair can arrange a brief informal meet-up at a time that suits both parties – be it a phone call, Skype call, Google Hangout or even a coffee in person.

> “RCTs have given me the opportunity to talk to people who work in areas that I don’t usually come across in my day to day work.” Lesley Goodburn, Patient Experience Consultant

> RCTs allow Q members to connect with a new member each month and hear about what other colleagues are working on and share any ideas and inspiration. There are no rules here – RCTs should be viewed as an informal opportunity to connect with peers, however if scheduling means that you can’t meet that month then it’s ok.

> We think you’ll enjoy these fun and fruitful conversations – it’s organised serendipity. Matthew Mezey, Q’s Community Manager has written a blog about the benefits of RCTs.

And here's a link to that blog: https://q.health.org.uk/blog-post/easy-time-light-impact-hea...

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

#295

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #292
blackflame7000 wrote: post #240

If you Unban me things would be slightly less lonely!

We can't do that yet because you're still posting too many unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. But if you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

[deleted]

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

#296

Post by blackflame7000 »

dang wrote: post #292
blackflame7000 wrote: post #240

If you Unban me things would be slightly less lonely!

We can't do that yet because you're still posting too many unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. But if you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

Here’s my reason: The election is over so lets have a time of healing? My entire comment history is like 10,000 up and 8,600 down if I had to wager, it’s still net positive on the community. I’ll refrain from anything political.. until oct of 2024, deal?

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

#297

Post by rattray »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #282
rattray wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good idea. Any accounts you'd recommend in particular?

A few that come to mind are: The New England Complex Systems Institute - https://necsi.edu/ (Twitter link at top right) London Math Lab’s Ergodicity Economics group - https://ergodicityeconomics.com/ (Twitter feed in left column) Any PI running a research project of interest to you at the Santa Fe Institute - https://www.santafe.edu/

Thanks!

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

#298

Post by krapp »

dang wrote: post #287
krapp wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I do one? The UX for paginated threads is awful. I know you want to get rid of it, but I really hope you don't, because reading through something like the 4000 comment Biden thread as a single page would be incredibly taxing, and having to go through 'more' links to get to recent content is annoying. Long threads do need to be paginated, but I think you should consider what other forums do and add a set of page l…

I still want to just get back to what HN always used to do, which is just render the entire page fast. As long as the page loads quickly, I don't see why a 4000 comment page would be more taxing than having it spread across multiple pages - one can simply stop reading, no? Better links for navigating around large threads is on the todo list too...

>As long as the page loads quickly, I don't see why a 4000 comment page would be more taxing than having it spread across multiple pages - one can simply stop reading, no?

Threads aren't linear - people don't read them from top to bottom like documents. Every subthread is a separate conversation which the reader may or may not be interested in, and having distinct pages makes discovery easier. Ask yourself why every other list page on the site is paginated? Why have only thirty stories listed on the front page? Why not just list every story ever posted, or every story this year, or the first thousand or hundred at a time?

And as far as "one can simply stop reading," ... yes... but this is a forum. It's primary purpose is to be read, not to demonstrate how quickly Arc can render HTML and send it up the pipe. That isn't even impressive. What is the value added by rendering a thread in a single page? How does that make the site better than pagination? What is the user getting in return for the loss in readability?

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

#299

Post by [deleted] »

fit2rule wrote: post #258
grawprog wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to throw one out for dang here. I took your moderating personally when I first joined here, got banned for some comments I didn't think were that bad, hell i've made worse since, spent a while posting greyed out comments going off at dang, posted some not so shitty comments that got given a chance, realized I should try harder in my comments and just push my way back in by writing things that contribute bet…

I'm banned right now, and I find it refreshing.

[deleted]

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

#300

Post by krapp »

dang wrote: post #289
TeMPOraL wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for linking that. TIL: sorting rank is a function of timestamp and votes, so when the mods push a story back to the front page, instead of special-casing the behavior, they just (get a computer to) fabricate a submission timestamp that puts the story in appropriate place on the front page. It's a clever hack, alright, but dang if I didn't start to think I was going crazy, because something felt off with timest…

It's not a great solution because it confuses the people who notice. The problem is that it's even more confusing if we re-up posts that say "3 days ago" or whatever onto the front page. Then the threads fill up with "why is this 3 days ago post on the front page"? Another option would be to clone the old submission into a new one, but then we get more dupes. And I don't know of any viable fourth option.

Fourth option - don't show dates or timestamps at all. The age of the actual article is what matters, and people can find that out by actually reading the article.

Would that not be viable?

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