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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

> Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs.

Don't get me started.

Particularly "muting" posts with auto-moderator (silently hiding them for others without notification/warning/explanation). It was originally created for spam control but is regularly abused for generic moderation. It needs more controls placed on it.

To give a recent example, I wrote a long reply in /r/fitness's daily discussion but it was muted because it contained an offhand remark about COVID-19 (vis-a-vis getting hold of fitness equipment right now). Why are they muting all comments that contain "COVID?" Who even knows, but the /way/ it was done was pretty irksome and resulted in wasted effort on my part for a comment that violated zero published rules or etiquette.

/r/politics has a huge dictionary of phases and idioms that result in auto muting. None of which are defined in their rules.

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> /r/politics has a huge dictionary of phases and idioms that result in auto muting. None of which are defined in their rules.

This is true here on HN too. One such word that I’ve seen to cause comments get auto-killed is “m∗sturbation” (censored for obvious reasons), and I am sure there are others.

Plenty of people complain about overmoderation here on HN as well... I am one of those people

I firmly believe that the only way an online forum, particularly an anonymous one with free signups can remain relatively civil is very heavy handed moderation. This is not a free speech zone (it's a privately owned space), and the only way to prevent bad actors is to be very liberal in applying heavy moderation.

If a few "medium" actors get banned by accident, that's the price to pay for the rest of us getting to enjoy discussing tech without dealing with a toxic cesspool.

I strongly disagree. Bad actors thrive just as well if not better in places with moderation and even sign up fees.

Metafilter is a forum which used to be very diverse in opinion and is now basically captured by a small vocal minority. How did they do this? The minority produced a large amount of content for the forum and was very active. 95% of that content was high quality and on topic but the remainder is biased and very opinionated. As a result of their interaction with the site they were closer to the mods, regarded more highly, given the benefit of the doubt in "bad actor" conversations.

Now today Metafilter is a dying community of territorial users who eviscerate anyone who doesn't know how to play the game. The minority won and created their little clubhouse corner of the internet. Metafilter as a forum though is a shell of its former self. There are fundraisers to keep the site alive and formerly paid mods and devs are now either retired or do it for free. Not only did it drive away old and new users but the minority also seems to have become bored without constant drama and moved on (as seen by new posts and commenting activity falling of a cliff).

I know the common refrain on HN and in general is "on a private platform there is no such thing as free speech" but be careful. Don't let blatantly toxic users run your platform but beware of users who are quick to call everything toxic.

Every community has its rise and fall, and there is no one solution for all of them, but I still think without heavy moderation that fall comes much quicker and more violently.

Yes, moderation might be necessary, but what the anecdote illustrates is that simply having moderation will not be enough.

Here's the list:

  masturb circlejerk faggot nigger feminazi shitstain lmgtfy.com #maga

...plus a bunch of spam sites. Why those words and not others? Shitstained if I know. These things tend to get added when somebody does something, and then stay there.

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