Hacker News Reader

Comment by ziikutv | Hacker News Reader

Please pardon my ignorance. What is the point of this? How does it help?

Hacker News has a libertarian leaning ideology among both its community and site-runners. As a result, things like deleted posts, changed thread titles, etc could be seen by folks with such leanings as an impingement on their "free speech" by the site's moderators.

Thus folks want a way to check what has been deleted, changed, or modified by the folks in charge. I imagine this exists to help satisfy that desire.

For an example, note this comment and its corresponding thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16018978

No, the phenomenon is rather that HN readers with strong ideological feelings tend to see the site as dominated by, and the mods in cahoots with, their ideological enemies. This has to be some kind of cognitive bias since the claims people make about HN, and us, are so comically contradictory. If you don't believe me, here are a few typical examples:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730

Plenty more here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=.... It is perennial.

By the way, that thread you linked to shows exactly the opposite of what you say, if you read it to the end. This too is typical, except for the part where the original commenter admirably accepts the correction. That bit is surprisingly rare!

> the phenomenon is rather that HN readers with strong ideological feelings tend to see the site as dominated by, and the mods in cahoots with, their ideological enemies.

I agree, but I don't think that's why this is a popular piece. Such a post would not resonate as well on NeoGAF or ResetERA or even Reddit, but the political leanings of this site propelled this to the front page. There's more to it than just seeing the mods as being in cahoots with enemies. It's the ideology that any moderation is inherently untrustworthy and that the power must be constantly kept 'in check'.

You can find endless examples of folks who feel they are pariahs. I still think that Hacker News has a severe idealogical bend, just like any online community. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that bend matches the mindset of many programmers - techno-libertarianism.

To be clear, I'm not claiming that the moderators have some idealogical bias - I've never come across that. Simply that certain trains of thought are very popular here, and the notion of "free speech" being impeded by aggressive moderation is something that has been rehashed on this site time and time again.

I realize you may have taken issue with my comment because I said "site-runners" in my claim of an ideology. I realize that this was poor word-choice, as I actually meant the YC, not Hacker News - they got conflated in my mind and I apologize for the mistake.

I have seen far more examples of liberals on HN (in the American sense) than libertarians.

It's a mix of ideologies. But the moderation ideology is largely authoritarian, which is enjoyed by both the left and right.

You've entirely imagined that.

Actually your comment is a textbook example of what I described. HN makes this easy, because no matter what you believe about HN, you can always find examples that appear to support it. Not that most people bother to try, or even make the simplest effort at factual truth (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019042).

Based on what I know about moderation, the penalty on the story may have been overruled by upvotes or reversed by moderators. This does happen occasionally.

And by authoritarianism I do not mean politically authoritarian views, simply authoritarianism applied to moderation decisions (having iron fisted idea police ensuring the quality of HN discussion).

As dang mentioned already, it seems like a good mix. I've seen libertarian, communists, conservatives, anarchists etc. It's one of the few places online where there is a reasonably polite political discourse on topics which touch politics. Yes those articles are sometimes flagged or removed as discussion devolves into insults. It's just that elsewhere it is much worse.

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