The Moderators Who Keep Hacker News Focused on Intellectual Curiosity
thenewstack.io
thenewstack.io
Maybe they should hold an AMA.
“The site’s now characteristic tone of performative erudition — hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative — often masks a deeper recklessness,”
I am rate limited. And it's just fine. I like to do what I do, and feel very few inhibitions. Real conversation matters to me more than volume of conversation does. And that ranges from the discouraged here to the encouraged. My own skin is very, very thick. No worries on my end no matter what. (I've read it all man. ALL) But, others do vary. Happens with people. It's all good.
For the most part, the loss is the occasional follow up that would have added value, but also no worries. The limit is there, and honestly? Yeah, there are often better things to do. Win-win, if you ask me.
The style of moderation is, for the most part, unobtrusive, very frank and polite (dang asked me multiple times, early on, and very nicely I might add, to either not do, or modify how I do things, and a fair number of those requests were easily done), and effective. Love it.
I moderate elsewhere, and have picked up more than a few good tips here, many unsaid, just observed. In particular, simple tools like the rate limiting, or frank requests, are a lot more powerful than I believe people realize.
Norms matter, and these two moderators are exemplary at establishing and maintaining reasonable community norms. Unlike rules, which people often see as targets or a thing to be gamed, norms tend to be a bit more fuzzy and us users here tend to amplify them when those norms are resonant with us and what we find here of value.
In my own efforts, I have emphasized norms far more than rules, and some of that influence comes from this fine place for discussion.
Kudos you two. Well done!
Something tells me that external media focus on the moderation of this site is going to be something we're all going to wind up regretting.
Is all of this coverage organic, or did someone hire a PR firm?
(none of the above is meant to imply that the mods here are not doing a good job.)
HN is very america centric and anything that goes against "the american narrative" that america is great, the free market is great, usually gets downvoted pretty hard. To suggest HN is a dispassionate place is quite the bit of nonsense. HN has it's mod and user hivemind because it pretends to be rational when it isn't.
Take the topic of software ownership and the mass invasion of privacy, or the theft of game software over the last 20 years by corporate america. The rise of steam, server locked software and invasive privacy invading games and apps which are specifically coded against users controlling them.
Or the fact that the public domain has been destroyed and america has been a place of total corporate lawlessnes for the last two centuries, if one is going to go by scientific evidence, the rule of law does not exist in capitalist societies. You have one class that's completely above the law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#/...
A small number of them get downvoted, but the more well-expressed the idea, the less likely it is to get downvoted.
Of course muricans gonna murica, but hn is 1000x better than reddit in that regard, and has very reasonable moderation.