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Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

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Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#301

Post by 12831231 »

tptacek wrote: post #273
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your point is wrong. You seemed to claim that in the dang era rank penalization is a thing of the past. You seem to claim that unsubstantive comments will no longer get you penalized. You are claiming that these decisions are more transparent and less arbitrary than under pg. All three are completely false, but you're just not subjected to them. I was not informed that I had been quietly penalized in any way unti…

It's like you didn't read my comment and instead just decided to litigate further whether your penalties are legitimate. I'm the wrong person to have this conversation with, because --- just to be direct about this --- I do not care.

Likewise, no one outside the HN echo chamber cares about your opinion at all.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#302

Post by yodsanklai »

eropple wrote: post #156
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.

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.

Maybe because I'm a "white dude" myself, but I find the propagation of racial stereotypes quite offensive.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#303

Post by eropple »

anigbrowl wrote: post #300
tptacek wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. I've been doing it for something close to a decade now --- and, in fact, now have it pretty close to automated. I programmatically follow the people who write the worst racist and misogynistic and homophobic crap on this site. This is a problem I've studied, and one I think you know I've spent real, measurable, expensive time on here. I don't think you can dismiss what I'm saying so easily. Individual…

Well, I was thinking of different moderation policies rather than user-driven flagging of the kind you describe, so in that sense we agree. My basic disagreement is that 'just ignore it' and 'don't do things that attract their attention' are not viable strategies for target populations, and it's unjust to systematically shift the burden of responsibility from persistent antagonists to their victims. I'm interested in…

I would be interested in hearing about this, too, if you feel like cutting me in. I have a similar thing going as to 'tptacek, but I'm gonna bet that his is more refined.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#304

Post by Mz »

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?

I don't believe this is going on. I believe most sexism posts get flagged by users, not downmodded by moderators.

I strongly suspect that many users flag based on the title, without reading further. Most of the sexism focused pieces are pretty bad. I'm a woman and I tend to hate most of them.

Once or twice, I emailed the mods when I felt a post on the subject was poorly titled, but had worthwhile content. On at least one occasion, they changed the title and, I think, turned off flags for the piece so it could be seen.

I am careful to have a light hand. I seem to be the most prominent female member here and I can get accused of having an agenda for saying anything at all on the topic of sexism. *

I have tried to write more evenhanded pieces on one of my blogs. Some of those have gone okay, but they never really get all that much traffic or response on HN. But, as I see it, some of the problems with this topic include:

1) It has a long track record of ugliness on both sides, so some people kneejerk flag anything that sounds like it touches on the topic because they are tired of these toxic, pointless discussions.

2) Most pieces are pretty man-bashing. The audience here is predominantly male. They get tired of being hated on for having been born male. (I am also tired of the misandry, so I don't think that is unreasonable.)

3) Most pieces on the topic aren't really all that good. They are typically histrionic and blamey.

4) If you don't use the usual catch phrases in the title, people won't recognize that it is pertinent to a topic they are interested in. If you do, you can't sidestep all the baggage it involves. So trying to do something better faces a huge uphill battle in terms of even being recognized as both relevant and not guilty of the usual issues.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486833

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#305

Post by dhimes »

tptacek wrote: post #295
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely just the fact that I can't recall an active HN conversation which tptacek didn't post in. It's kinda easier to rack up a high karma when you have a LOT of comments to upvote. His account is also about to hit it's tenth anniversary of it's creation in about a week and a half. He actually only picks up about 78 karma a day average.

Almost all my karma comes from simple name recognition. None of it is merit. I think we should get rid of the dumb scores.

Almost all my karma comes from simple name recognition. None of it is merit.

Now this gave me my best laugh of the day!

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#306

Post by tptacek »

eropple wrote: post #303
anigbrowl wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I was thinking of different moderation policies rather than user-driven flagging of the kind you describe, so in that sense we agree. My basic disagreement is that 'just ignore it' and 'don't do things that attract their attention' are not viable strategies for target populations, and it's unjust to systematically shift the burden of responsibility from persistent antagonists to their victims. I'm interested in…

I would be interested in hearing about this, too, if you feel like cutting me in. I have a similar thing going as to 'tptacek, but I'm gonna bet that his is more refined.

I'm happy to start a support group on the crypto slack, and also glad to hear I'm not the only person working seriously on the problem.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#307

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

anigbrowl wrote: post #274
wvenable wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge flame wars get a lot of upvotes and lots of comments -- but it's essentially the forum equivalent of candy. If you want your forum to have some nutritional value than you can't let the candy topics run rampant no matter how much people seem to want them.

Huge flame wars get a lot of upvotes and lots of comments -- but it's essentially the forum equivalent of candy. Sez you. The unspoken premise is that nothing is so important that it's worth stopping to have an argument over. Perhaps I'm misreading your views, but when they're tossed out as an aphorism they come off as smug rather than substantive.

There is a difference between an argument and having a knock down drag out fight.

For example when parents have a disagreement about how to deal with catching their child sneaking in drunk after a party.

This can go many ways but for the purpose of highlighting the difference take Chris and Pat.

(argument)

Chris: Pat, I can understand how you'd feel that way, but considering the family history of alcoholism, maybe we should take a more conservative approach with this.

vs

(flame war)

Chris: Well, Pat... Maybe if your mother had cared half as much about you and your brother growing up as I'm trying to care about our kids and cracked down on you guys a little bit, maybe your brother would have stopped at that red light, and maybe your kids would have an Uncle.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#308

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #306
eropple wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested in hearing about this, too, if you feel like cutting me in. I have a similar thing going as to 'tptacek, but I'm gonna bet that his is more refined.

I'm happy to start a support group on the crypto slack, and also glad to hear I'm not the only person working seriously on the problem.

[deleted]

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#309

Post by specialist »

tptacek wrote: post #292
anigbrowl wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does, it's just more labor-intensive.

No, it doesn't. I've been doing it for something close to a decade now --- and, in fact, now have it pretty close to automated. I programmatically follow the people who write the worst racist and misogynistic and homophobic crap on this site. This is a problem I've studied, and one I think you know I've spent real, measurable, expensive time on here. I don't think you can dismiss what I'm saying so easily. Individual…

I'd rather just follow other users. See HN as you see it. Piggyback off your good taste, curation.

A la the multireddit feature, if I could combine the page views & upvotes, and filter out the flags & downvotes, of you and everyone you recommend in your profile, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't see the trolls, flamewars.

I used to moderate forums. Major chore. The notion of just following people you like, trust would remove a lot of the moderator's make work.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#310

Post by ansible »

tptacek wrote: post #295
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely just the fact that I can't recall an active HN conversation which tptacek didn't post in. It's kinda easier to rack up a high karma when you have a LOT of comments to upvote. His account is also about to hit it's tenth anniversary of it's creation in about a week and a half. He actually only picks up about 78 karma a day average.

Almost all my karma comes from simple name recognition. None of it is merit. I think we should get rid of the dumb scores.

Almost all my karma comes from simple name recognition. None of it is merit.

If that's true, that's disappointing.

I occasionally upvote your comments... when they're good.

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