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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)

#51

Post by danso »

awb wrote: post #6

Question for the mods: In the old days I don’t remember as much political / world news allowed. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. But I’ve seen more types of TV news s…

If there is a greater incidence of seemingly off-topic (politics, crime, or sports) submissions, it's likely correlated to the fact that tech is more and more inseparable from everyday life and policy decisions, and vice versa. One of my favorite memories from early 2020 HN was someone angrily asking why stories about Covid-19 were making the front page, as if they couldn't imagine how a potential pandemic might deeply affect the tech sector.

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

#52

Post by _fat_santa »

stickfigure wrote: post #27
awb wrote: post #6

Question for the mods: In the old days I don’t remember as much political / world news allowed. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. But I’ve seen more types of TV news s…

How far back do you consider the "old days"? In the decade-plus I've been around, there has always been a small but steady stream of nontech political content. Despite the policy. My perception is that hasn't increased or decreased, though it does have periodic surges (say, US election season). I personally think it adds to the appeal of HN - in moderation, of course. Political conversations here are generally better…

I don't see political posts here getting traction very often. The ones that do usually are angled towards the community (anytime censorship bills come up, you get 500+ comment HN threads). Meanwhile, browsing the new section I found that articles that are just blatantly political ("you won't believe what AOC did in Florida!" to make up a title), often linger with few comments and votes.

And even in those rare political posts I find, the discourse is very different from other places. I think that boils down to the golden rule of comments: "thoughtful and substantive". I've noticed the culture of HN is to downvote any comment that does not adhere to this rule, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. Even in comments I've posted about China that ended with a sentence about how I disliked the leader got knocked for being counterproductive.

At the end of the day, you can have the most frought and divisive thread here and the comments are going to all be far more civil and thoughful than on Reddit or Facebook because even thought everyone might be up in arms, all of them are going "well I'll show them! types long thoughtful comment that addresses everyone's grievances"

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

#53

Post by doublerabbit »

This thread gave me the sudden urge to backdate HN on WebArchive.

What's amusing is the post on the front-page: "Web 2.0 is a bubble for 3 reasons" yet seeing the same for Web 3.0.

HN from 2007 http://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/https://news.ycomb...

Edit: Strange downvotes...

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

#54

Post by ksec »

awb wrote: post #6

Question for the mods: In the old days I don’t remember as much political / world news allowed. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. But I’ve seen more types of TV news s…

I "think", most of those debate ties with technology one way or another. Say Joe Rogan's issue may not have been allowed on HN if it wasn't for Spotify.

And more broadly speaking, what are the roles of technology in an extremely political sensitive climate. Should Telegram do A or B, and what about Whatsapp, Facebook moderation, Apple App Store disallow certain group, is that a curation problem or a political problem? Fake News, Yellow Journalism, none of these are "new". But now they happen on Tech rather than traditional media, is that a tech problem or a political problem? We just dont have any concrete answer.

There are other Geopolitics issues. I mean if WW3 did start surely that is important enough for HN submission. Or China decide to invade Taiwan, so to speak. Surely the threat of TSMC Foundry supply is important enough for submission even if the article itself doesn't mention TSMC.

So while the rule is not black and white as zero politics discussions. I think the moderation is fairly consistent. Still dont know how Dang manages it. To the point I sometimes worry about him leaving YC, and HN may never be the same again.

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

#55

Post by vikingerik »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #37
awb wrote: post #6

Question for the mods: In the old days I don’t remember as much political / world news allowed. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. But I’ve seen more types of TV news s…

Without getting into the details of each particular submission I’m curious if you think the submission standards have remained consistent throughout the years or if your curation philosophy has changed at all and if so, in what ways? There was a change a while back that made the front page less volatile, around that time you started seeing stories merged more often, and traditional news creeping in a bit more. I thin…

I've noticed that same increase in Reddit-style one-liner jokes and references here too. Not enough to become a problem yet, but just enough to worry about setting precedent for more. One good one-liner in a thread can be alright, but it tends to attract a train of similar low-content responses.

I hadn't connected that to a pandemic-induced demand increase, but that could well be true.

As for submissions (rather than comments), it does feel like HN has shifted more towards broader industry and politics news, rather than just tech and programming. I'm okay with this, in fact HN has displaced Reddit for me thanks to the much higher standard of discourse, although I do worry a bit about marginalizing the crunchy tech content for those who come here for that.

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

#56

Post by optimalsolver »

robertakarobin wrote: post #16
optimalsolver wrote: post #4

I've noticed that all the online spaces I enjoy visiting are heavily moderated. Whenever I get linked to "free speech" loosely-moderated platforms, I usually hit the back button pretty quick.

Yes, in general "free speech" platforms seem to quickly turn into Alt-Right platforms that are, ironically, heavily moderated. (Looking at you, Voat)

I've said this before, but it's particularly notable how free speech Reddit alternatives very quickly end up taking a far-right tone.

What's really funny is how all discussions they host have to be approached from that angle.

So you can't just talk about your favorite TV show. You have to first make a nod to how it features a Jewish conspiracy to push black-white interracial relationships. Only then can you go on to discuss the actual episode.

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

#57

Post by dqv »

doublerabbit wrote: post #53

This thread gave me the sudden urge to backdate HN on WebArchive. What's amusing is the post on the front-page: "Web 2.0 is a bubble for 3 reasons" yet seeing the same for Web 3.0. HN from 2007 http://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/https://news.ycomb... Edit: Strange downvotes...

If you’d like to have a deeper dive, HN has a way to see previous front pages: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2022-01-16

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

#58

Post by andrewfromx »

simias wrote: post #14
andrewfromx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait for https://www.deso.org/ to take off, not just for the value of the coin to increase, but to see lots of nodes taking over the responsibility of twitter/fb/youtube etc's what's okay and what's not. There will be someone willing to run a node that has all the stuff blocked or unblocked to suit everyone's tastes.

Anybody can run their own platform right now without involving any cryptononsense. That's how the net used to work after all. Anybody failing to understand what lead to the centralization is bound to reproduce the same mistakes. It's not a technical issue, it's a social one.

I'm a believer after watching "The Next Big Social Media Network Will Be On the Blockchain. Nader Al-Naji Tells Us Why." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFiPVGN3J2M

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

#60

Post by edmcnulty101 »

eldaisfish wrote: post #25
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard to define specific political content as separate from technology. I remember a single Covid scientific paper turning into a 500 post political discussion. Or tech giants and censorship and privacy. How does one separate tech from politics in this sense? Maybe society has become more political and it's making it's way to link aggregator sites?

the reality is that almost everything has an element of politics and it is good to understand the relationship between politics and technology in particular. Tech, in many ways, has been adept at skirting existing laws because tech transcends barriers that were show-stoppers in the past. AirBnB, Uber are good examples. Google, facebook and spying. Clearview and their immoral data gathering. There is the additional is…

I think it makes sense that more political discussions occur on hacker News because tech and the world in general possibly is becoming more political.
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