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Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

drewdevault.com

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Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#391

Post by nickjj »

I always felt like there was something weird about rankings when it came to HN.

I recall submitting something that got around 7 upvotes in 30 minutes but it got dead and buried and never presented itself on the front page. The content wasn't edgy and it wasn't clickbait.

But a few days later I saw an unrelated post with 2 upvotes after 1 full hour and it was magically on the front page.

If a post with 2 upvotes after 1 hour can be on the front page but a post with 7 upvotes in 30 minutes is not, then surely there needs to be some type of manual intervention happening. Glad to see there's data showing this now and I'm not going crazy.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#392

Post by mcguire »

tptacek wrote: post #128
mcguire wrote: post #83

Then, there is the case of 'On Whose Authority ( http://z.caudate.me/on-whose-authority/ ), the HN discussion of which was killed while the discussion of Rich Hickey's response ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/73yznc/on_whose_au... ) was ongoing and both were on the front page.

Interpersonal drama gets flagged off the site routinely. You see the same thing happen when a "story" is really an extrapolation of one person's tweet. I remember flagging that post myself.

Did you also flag the response?

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#393

Post by [deleted] »

timthelion wrote: post #366
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I don't see how this acocunt violated the guidelines, or how the username is trollish. Can you clarify?

I think that dang was simply reacting to "Any user name with the word Kek in it is a troll." Kek is a word used almost solely by extreme right, sexist, racist trolls (in that order, more likely to be extremely sexist than racist). http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cult-of-kek

[deleted]

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#394

Post by logfromblammo »

ibebnndagan wrote: post #86
logfromblammo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend enough time slacking off with just one account. I can't imagine getting anything done at all with two or three. Perhaps that is done to avoid the rate limiter? I can usually only make five posts in one 8-hour span, and then the sixth attempt says, "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks. Also, don't count the number of posts tptacek can make in one thread in one hour and compare it to your total fo…

I've seen threads where he and his possey made up 50% of the comments, controlling the narrative and rallying their forces to down vote flag those who had the tenacity to disagree with them. Also since you mentioned a particular user your comment will be removed. Funny how that works.

I'm glad to see parent comment back from [dead], because I have also noticed it. That's why I mentioned that particular account in the first place. You can search in this very thread to see (as of now) 27 posts by that account, one admitting to robot-assisted vigilantism against certain types of users--namely racists, misogynists, and homophobes. One of the other matches mentions that he can occasionally be quite mean.

I can recall at least one instance where he replied to me directly, and I wanted to engage, but couldn't, because I was "posting too fast".

It's the network neutrality issue writ small. Some people have fast lanes on this site, and others have slow lanes. I don't like it here, and it annoys me when I notice it. If it becomes the status quo for the whole network, you can be sure that I will be engaging in "shovel vigilantism" in the dark of some nights. Freedoms of speech and publication are no longer supportive of liberty and equality when certain favored people are allocated 10000 times as much speech as most other people are usually allowed, and drown out all other voices with their sheer volume rather than the merit of their claims.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#395

Post by tptacek »

mcguire wrote: post #392
tptacek wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interpersonal drama gets flagged off the site routinely. You see the same thing happen when a "story" is really an extrapolation of one person's tweet. I remember flagging that post myself.

Did you also flag the response?

I don't remember, but if I saw it, I did. I try to flag all drama stories.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#396

Post by dang »

belorn wrote: post #385
dang wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 took a look at that along with the reply we detached, which was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086980, and it seems to me a fair place to draw the line. The original comment was predominantly thoughtful while the detached comment was predominantly flamey.

These calls are somewhat arbitrary because when a thread degenerates, you can always trace the root of the degeneration further upthread. But moderation is more like pruning a tree than excising a tumor. The goal isn't to get rid of all malignancy—that would be too draconian and is impossible anyway. It's to detach the bulk of unwanted growth.

People can reasonably differ about individual cases, but the principle here ought to be pretty solid for anyone who has read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and wants to use the site as intended.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#397

Post by ocdtrekkie »

dang wrote: post #373
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.

You guys are getting pretty weird commenting on a fellow user and this crosses the line. Can we just not go there please?

My apologies. I had merely been attempting to explain why said user having a massive karma score isn't suspicious or surprising. It ended up launching more conversation which wasn't really intended. It shan't happen again.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#398

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #332
Mz wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham is originally from the UK. I believe Dan Gackle is Canadian in origin. Patio11 is a white American male living in Japan. Jacquesm is Dutch. Tokenadult has an Asian wife and has lived in Asia. My impression is that the forum is fairly multicultural. It is not a monolith of white American males/white American male culture. I am much more concerned with feeling heard than with whether or not they have firsth…

I don't think this is a super productive debate to have here, but I do want to clarify that I'm not calling for more diversity on the mod staff, as much as just an awareness of what the mod staff is.

[deleted]

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#399

Post by yahna »

tptacek wrote: post #362
yahna wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fairness doctrine was not found to be unconstitutional.

I believe you're incorrect about that.

I'm not.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/everyth...

> A lawsuit challenging the doctrine on First Amendment grounds, Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission , reached the Supreme Court in 1969. The Court ruled unanimously that while broadcasters have First Amendment speech rights, the fact that the spectrum is owned by the government and merely leased to broadcasters gives the FCC the right to regulate news content.

Re: Analyzing HN moderation and censorship

#400

Post by grandalf »

This a great analysis. I would love to see a public page displaying title changes so that I could click "request explanation" and the mods could offer an explanation for those every day based on reader interest.

Whatever is going on to achieve it, HN is a great online community, and so maybe that is due to the moderation. Sometimes I wonder if it might be in spite of the moderation, but who knows :)

the precipitous drop that happens to stories after their titles have been changed shows a very strong editorial bias going on. I think there is a general strategy of keeping highly controversial political topics off of HN.

The question is, when does this sort of censorship constitute an ideological crackdown in its own right.

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