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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

'Censorship' has become more pejorative than informative, but you're right that users are downvoting and flagging comments; I think pretty fairly. Wherever moderators have intervened (in any way that affects comment visibility), we've posted comments saying so. That goes for the previous threads too.

Not every kind of comment is welcome here. HN is trying for higher-quality discussion. (Trying and failing, of course. But we can always fail better.) Comments that destroy the possibility of higher-quality discussion should certainly be flagged—otherwise the community is hostage to every kind of trolling.

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Every comment I've seen so far that has been dead or flagged down had these two properties:

1. Honestly attempting to contribute new information and views to the conversation, or asking new questions. 2. Opinion or assumptions would be considered immoral from a certain (currently dominant) point of view.

It seems pretty clear to me that "high-quality" is being conflated with "reinforces my moral convictions" or "upholds my tribal sacred values".

There should be an effort to push back against this (though it'd take a really deep commitment to free speech and against moral/tribal orthodoxy as a general principle). It seems unlikely but one can hope.

EDIT: Hilariously, I'm getting downvotes for this. There's an Inception joke in here somewhere.

HN isn't an ideological battleground. In general, it's for whatever gratifies intellectual curiosity. The flagged comments may have contributed information, but most of them share a common trait: they're incendiary.

The way to introduce a controversial idea on HN is to be substantive and neutral. It's not easy to do. People are generally passionate about their points of view, and I've been guilty of this myself. But the ideal is worth striving for.

In particular, complaining about downvotes is also against the rules. I did this the other day and regretted it; it unfairly catapulted my comment to the top of the thread due to the overcorrection, and by then it was too late to edit. It's better to let a comment stand or fall on its own merits, as difficult as that is.

>The way to introduce a controversial idea on HN is to be substantive and neutral.

I agree in principle. But standards should be applied the same way to all comments with regard to viewpoints.

What I'm seeing is that the same standards aren't being applied to different viewpoints.

An orthodox viewpoint can be written casually, unsourced, tinged with moral judgment, etc, and still get away unflagged and not downvoted. An unorthodox viewpoint will get ripped apart on the tiniest error, missing source, or mis-chosen wordage.

I understand people are tribal and some just want to suppress dissent and maintain the power of their orthodoxy. But I also hope a place like HN can rise above such tribalism.

(regarding downvote complaints I don't disagree with the general policy.. if you're referring to my comment you replied to here I didn't intend to complain, only to point out the irony and perhaps try to cue some downvoters to consider what they're doing from a further remove).

You can see the content of flagged comments by going into your profile settings and turning on the [showdead] option. Currently there are 26 flagged comments, so to pick a few random ones:

"By that standard, the only way to never do anything inappropriate is to never do anything."

"It's interesting that you construct a whole evil persona for someone..."

"When your worth is defined solely by how horny you make the opposite sex..."

"I cannot understand why sexual harassment takes such a toll on women. I've been sexually harassed by other men before, and somehow it wasn't as big of a problem..."

I didn't cherry-pick the above examples; they were just the first few that showed up with Command-F [flagged]. "Incendiary" is still probably the best way to describe these comments, which is why they're flagged. The other reason is shallowness on a controversial topic, which usually leads to flamewars.

If you see a comment that breaks a specific guideline in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html then you're encouraged to flag it. (You need a certain amount of karma to see the flag button.) The main reason that the comments you mention aren't flagged is usually because they don't violate any of the guidelines. The system isn't perfect, but it seems to work remarkably well given the size of HN's audience.

Regarding talking about downvotes, I understand and can relate to the point of view. To clarify, I didn't mean anything by the word "complain." The reason to avoid mentioning "downvotes" at all is because (a) talking about downvotes spawns low-quality subthreads almost instantly, and (b) it gives your comment an unfair advantage. HN's voting system fluctuates wildly thanks to the diversity of the people that now have the privilege of downvoting, but in general, high-quality substantive comments tend to rise.

If you want to give a few examples of comments you feel were unfairly flagged, or unflagged comments that you feel break the guidelines, I'd be happy to chat about those. (We're currently in a flagged subthread, so there's no harm in continuing our conversation.)

EDIT: To address one specific point more thoroughly:

Unorthodox, controversial viewpoints are indeed held to a higher standard, but the reason is because it fosters better conversation. For these, HN is optimized for substantive-but-neutral. Deviating from either axis tends to produce flamewars of the worst caliber.

On this topic, it absolutely is. Whenever these threads happen, they go one way or the other.

If the all-genders-equal, non-feminist side swings the discussion, the entire thread disappears off the front page, inexplicably sitting at position 500+ with no flagged indicator. The lambdaconf debacle comes to mind, but it's hardly the only example.

If the feminist, women-are-victims-side swings the discussion, the thread is left up, full of moral chastising, with a graveyard of flagged comments serving as a warning to the evil dissenters.

On this topic, HN is unquestionably biased from the top, and the pretense otherwise is laughably non-credible and deluded.

Furthermore, while meta-complaining is against the rules, this rule is again only enforced against those who question the party line, not those lamenting the amount of immoral thought on display.

The bigger message being sent is obvious though: men, don't bother apologizing for your missteps or character flaws. Forgiveness is not coming.

If a woman got drunk at a guy's house, and was being insistent upon being shown the door, throwing it in her face would be considered cold and insensitive.

You might want to check your definitions -- feminism is the belief that all genders should be treated equally.

In feminism's the "motte and bailey" belief structure, that's the motte (the thing people say when challenged).

It's not the bailey (the thing people actually want to say and do) though.

One example of the bailey in action: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

Not every flagged comment has been flagged undeservedly, but some of them have.

I agree that there is a trend on HN where comments that go against the "moral convictions" or politics of the majority are flagged. It's disappointing to see this happening.

Flagging a poorly worded or clearly incendiary comment is fair. That's not what has happened to some of the comments for this article. I hesitate to call it censorship, but it comes close.

Would you mind listing some examples of flagged comments that you feel don't break the guidelines?

I feel that my two comments, although tone deaf, possibly misguided, and certainly not well worded, were good faith comments that did not overtly violate guidelines.

I've never had my comments on hn flagged before and can't help but think I wandered into a minefield. Nearly half of the top level comments on this thread are flagged. If you include the ones that are downvoted into oblivion it is fully half at the time of this writing.

Is that because this article is beset by trolls, or because the conversation is being stifled?

Hard to say. But I know my intention was good faith.

I think you're referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14692957.

This was a tough one. I ultimately decided not to vouch it, and I'd like to try to explain why. It doesn't have anything to do with the content or my own feelings on the matter, but rather the way in which the idea was presented.

I agree that it was in good faith, and it was also substantive. But it's not really neutral:

"But seriously? Do I live in an alternate reality where drunk people do all sorts of borderline illegal inappropriate stuff on a regular basis?"

"It may seem insensitive, but I am being pragmatic: whether or not something "haunts" you has as much to do with your way of framing an event and your attitude towards trauma as the actual event. Just because someone else did something wrong is no reason to carry it with you for years."

I can only describe my own perspective on the comment, which may not represent everyone else's. But the reason that I feel the flag is deserved is that even though the comment is written in good faith, it presents your side as clearly correct. The implication is that if anyone disagrees with you, they must be mistaken.

The phrasing "Do I live in an alternate reality...?" sets up the reader to want to disagree with you. It's argumentative rather than pensive. It's entirely possible that your life experiences are an outlier rather than representative. E.g. I agree that drunk people tend to do risky things, but in my own life, my friends manage to restrain themselves pretty well. I'm probably the outlier rather than you, but the point is that framing the argument as can't-possibly-be-wrong is poisonous to thoughtful conversation.

That leads to the other issue, which is that it blames the victim of harassment for feeling harassed. It's certainly possible that whether you're harmed by an incident is a matter of perspective, but it's not automatically up to the victim to fortify themselves. If someone is legitimately distraught over an incident, they'll carry that with them in ways that alter their future behavior to their own detriment. The core difference is the betrayal of someone you trusted and respected: if you're harassed by someone on the street, you can shrug it off. If someone you respect tries to force you into a corner and plant their lips on you, you're going to freak out and wonder how many other people in power are secretly this way, and how you could possibly be so naive to think they weren't. That sort of betrayal can stay with you for years.

So it's not that your comment was mistaken, but rather the nature of your phrasing tends to exclude thoughtful replies from forming, combined with the fact that the topic itself is extremely controversial. It's very difficult to react well to someone who both blames the victim and sets up an argument as if their life experiences are representative of the norm. (But I totally agree with you that it was written in good faith! I was just trying to explain some of the reasons why it got flagged, not call you out on anything.)

One thing that helped me in this regard was to phrase my controversial ideas as questions. "Drunk people tend to do reckless things. Would it be a good idea to cut him some slack in this case?" is far more likely to generate thoughtful comments than "Drunk people do reckless things. I can't believe that we're not cutting him some slack."

Hope this helps clarify a bit. The overall point is that if you put a lot of conversational passion into your side of the argument, this typically causes the other side to give an equally passionate rebuttal. But that's just another name for a flamewar. That's why it's better to be dispassionate yet substantive.

I think your feedback is great.

Also, I wasn't meaning to imply anyone should cut someone slack for behaving poorly while drunk. I was saying drunk people can be a menace, kinda like muggers. But although I've been mugged it doesn't exactly haunt me so much as make me cautious in certain situations. But whatever maybe my whole idea was stupid.

But why was my subsequent comment also flagged. And now I'm getting downvoted for pointing out that the user first flagging, and then commenting violates HN guidelines which clearly state not to do that. This feels completely out of control.

I wouldn't read too much into it. When users see a flagged comment, they're more inclined to flag subsequent comments of the same tone. Saying that you didn't read half the reply didn't really help matters, plus it was very energetic overall. Energy tends to be met with energy in the opposite direction, which tends to spark flamewars.

In general though, it's better to email hn@ycombinator.com with concerns about the site rather than comment about it. They're very responsive.

I did email them, and I do appreciate your feedback. At this point my concern is understanding flagging criteria and your analysis of my tone was helpful.

This comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14693085

Was not in the same tone and was flagged. It was an overtly conciliatory comment. When that comment was flagged, followed by the flagging user ignoring guidelines, I stopped debating.

There's a problem here that goes beyond my comments per se.

FWIW, I didn't flag that particular comment (I "vouched" for it, in fact, as well as for your reply).

This has been a massive miscommunication then.

When you wrote "that's why I flagged the comments" it didn't occur to me that you meant both the comments you were referring to: mine and khazhoux's.

Instead I misinterpreted that as both of my comments.

Which frustrated me because I felt my second comment was not similar to the first, and then I couldn't understand why you continued the discussion on a comment you had just flagged.

Now that I see what went on, I do appreciate you sharing your view as to why you flagged the first one and think it's basically all good from my pov.

That comment was eminently flaggable for being unrelated meta-discussion - it's mostly about you, has nothing to do with the post and is bound to generate a pointless meta-thread. The guidelines and endless moderation comments specifically ask you not to do this.

Fair enough.

edit: nevermind, its back on the frontpage

I don't think it was off the front page. Minor point, but people make so many sensitive comments to us about this kind of thing that it seems worth clarifying.

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