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The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

newyorker.com

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

#6

Post by julianlam »

One thing I've always wondered, is whether moderating a forum like HN (or any forum, really) is mentally stimulating enough to do day in and day out.

As a web developer, the more I do the more I crave novel challenges. Writing CRUD apps or getters and setters gets old fast.

Are there novel challenges with content moderation?

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

#7

Post by FrojoS »

julianlam wrote: post #6

One thing I've always wondered, is whether moderating a forum like HN (or any forum, really) is mentally stimulating enough to do day in and day out. As a web developer, the more I do the more I crave novel challenges. Writing CRUD apps or getters and setters gets old fast. Are there novel challenges with content moderation?

If you had a second stealth account to join discussions Im sure its plenty stimulating. But even just reading might be enough. HN is full of lurkers who spend an insane amount of time here.

edit: Im not saying the moderators have stealth accounts!

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

#8

Post by newscracker »

julianlam wrote: post #6

One thing I've always wondered, is whether moderating a forum like HN (or any forum, really) is mentally stimulating enough to do day in and day out. As a web developer, the more I do the more I crave novel challenges. Writing CRUD apps or getters and setters gets old fast. Are there novel challenges with content moderation?

As someone who moderates and has moderated content involving a whole lot of users, it can be taxing and sometimes mind numbing when people don’t follow the rules and you get spam. I’m sure HN has spam detection and removal in its ever improving code, but there would still be a lot to handle manually when it comes to guideline violations. In my experience elsewhere, there may be cases that aren’t clear cut as to whether they’re appropriate or what the writer intended to convey. Especially on a forum where people from different cultures converge, there’s a lot of space to misunderstand and be misunderstood.

At the same time, being able to read and learn from other people’s thoughts is always a stimulating experience. It gives opportunities to develop better mental models on certain things and also be able to explain certain things better to others.

So yeah, there are pros and cons, but I wouldn’t want to do this without a few other people who can take the workload and provide a break when it gets too tiring and exhausting.

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

#9

Post by krustyburger »

umvi wrote: post #5

Ah... dang = [Dan]iel [G]ackle I always thought it was just a mild expletive that reflected the role of moderation

I’ve also seen him be accused of biases involving his supposedly being Chinese. It’s sad when anything on HN turns into a flame war, and it would happen a lot more without his constant intervention.

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

#10

Post by iratewizard »

julianlam wrote: post #6

One thing I've always wondered, is whether moderating a forum like HN (or any forum, really) is mentally stimulating enough to do day in and day out. As a web developer, the more I do the more I crave novel challenges. Writing CRUD apps or getters and setters gets old fast. Are there novel challenges with content moderation?

Novel challenges? Feigning impartiality when the topic being discussed impacts a YC startup is up there.
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