I used to worry about downvotes, now I find solace in having annoyed the downvoters.
I agree that if you never get down votes, then you're not adding maximum value.
That was inspiring! Thank you for that.
Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
381–390 of 409 posts
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#382Interesting to see the ability to take away downvoting is not mentioned. After downvoting one person (who made multiple offensive contributions) in a single thread, I noticed later I could no longer downvote comments (but the downvote button still appeared). Ultimately, I think the secretive and subjective approach to moderation at Hacker News has resulted in a positive outcome, but it's still surprising to run into the limits on occasion.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, are you suggesting that people shouldn’t post their own stuff to HN? Or by “promote on HN”, do you mean posting on Twitter and telling people to go upvote?
Definitely not suggesting that! Sorry for the ambiguity. Of course it's fine for people to share their own work here (assuming it's on topic—but anything intellectually interesting is on topic). By 'naively tries to promote on HN' I mean things like asking friends to upvote and passing links around on Twitter. Those tactics don't work (or at least as far as I know they don't) and usually hurt the submission rather th…
Yeah, that’s what I figured, but I wanted to clarify since PH actually does seem to do it the other way. Thanks!
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have multiple email address for different purposes. I don't need multiple HN accounts for different purposes. Others might but I can't think why off the top of my head. The only time I've seen an obvious alternate account is the throw-away accounts opened just to troll/spam the site.
One example would be is that you might work for a company and have their point of view expressed on HN all the time; meanwhile you want to have your own account personal one that regardless if you continue working for said company or not, you still continue to use. Sort of like TV anchors have their own private twitter hints and then they have their work ones too.
That makes sense.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lets describe a example of moderation by dang. For an article a about work and unrelated to sexism, gender or racism, a commenter wrote out of the blue that all white men live privileged and easy lives. A second person replied and disagreed, arguing that some men don't have everything perfect and easy from the point of birth to death. The reply got moderated for causing a flame war, with third-party people asking dan…
Wouldn't it be better to supply a link? Then people could make up their own minds. Even if you're right, I'm not sure what evidence it's supposed to count as; everybody knows we make bad calls, and I know it better than anyone. But I searched for your incident and could only find https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14530877 , which is close to what you describe and (I think) would strike most HN readers as pretty de…
I was actually referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086798, but 14530877 also a good example.
The point is that if there is a bias, it would be that moderation seems to target those that disagree when people bring up sexism and racism in unrelated article discussions. It seems very safe, even profitable in terms of votes to bring up sexism and racism, which would be contrary to the views of matt4077.
I predict that if moderation was a bit more consistent in keeping out discussion about sexism and racism in unrelated articles (unless exceptional new insight), we would actually see less reader fatigue and lower amount of flagging for explicit articles about sexism and racism.
(Just to be extra clear, I don't disagree with the moderation itself on the two above examples if they had been the ones bringing in the topic of sexism into those threads).
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#386Earlier 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?
Great. Let's keep this place technical. How is "sexism in SV" of any interest to a global tech-focused community?
Tech is power now, and power is interesting to anybody longing for it.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#387Earlier 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?
Great. Let's keep this place technical. How is "sexism in SV" of any interest to a global tech-focused community?
Tech is power now, and power is interesting to anybody longing for it.
I for once welcome our new social justice overlords.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Often people think that's what they're supposed to do. I recall a discussion here many many years ago where we agreed that we wanted that- it was a cool part of the site. I didn't realize it changed.
Ask friends to upvote? Surely that was never a thing. Edit: my comment upthread was unclear so I added a bit.
You are correct: asking friends to upvote has always been discouraged.
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, I don't see how this acocunt violated the guidelines, or how the username is trollish. Can you clarify?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15467478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15044224 We eventually ban accounts that ignore our requests to follow the site guidelines. Inflammatory usernames catalyze that.
Gotcha. For the record, "kek" is a term that has been appropriated by trolls, but is not in and of itself a troll term. In the future, you should think twice about banning someone on that merit. The links you gave are better evidence, though, thanks!
Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15467478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15044224 We eventually ban accounts that ignore our requests to follow the site guidelines. Inflammatory usernames catalyze that.
Gotcha. For the record, "kek" is a term that has been appropriated by trolls, but is not in and of itself a troll term. In the future, you should think twice about banning someone on that merit. The links you gave are better evidence, though, thanks!
The links are a little snarky, not terribly helpful, but not especially out there. If you're banning that then banning those making racist remarks like up-thread seems right.
Personally I wouldn't ban either.