Tell HN: Thank You Dang | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Thank You Dang

2,363 pointssinak249 comments

Since it’s Thanksgiving here in the US, I thought it would be nice to say a big thank you to dang for his tireless work moderating HN.

Thank you dang. You keep this community vibrant and interesting, yet civil.

View on HN

Dang helped promote my "Show HN" side project to the front page [1], and that in turn got it worldwide press coverage [2,3,4,5]. But beyond that, I'm super appreciative for keeping the community consistently amazing throughout the years.

I've seen heated discussions here. Dang always offers constructive guidance when discourse devolves or gets off topic. It's never preachy, and it usually leads to amicable results when I see it.

In years past I commented in frustration that HN was at risk of becoming like Reddit. Dang said not to do this and pointed out a community rule discouraging it. Looking back, I was completely wrong in that judgment. HN is one of the few places that really hasn't changed. There are brilliant people from all walks of life and at various intersections of our industry, all coming together to ask questions and share our perspective. There isn't anything else like it.

HN isn't without faults, but it's the best community on the Internet as far as I'm aware. Frequently informative, always entertaining. I learn more every day because of HN.

Dang,

https://imgur.com/a/w7SRSzF (warning: audio)

Thank you.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23968134

[2] https://gigazine.net/news/20200728-vocodes/

[3] https://hightech.fm/2020/07/28/ai-celebrity-voice

[4] https://hypebeast.kr/2020/7/vocodes-free-launching-text-to-s...

[5] https://www.larazon.es/tecnologia/20200803/zdj5mf47zfc6rmci5...

Nice Deep Fake

I'm not sure why you got downvoted, because that's actually something in my post. Thanks for the compliment, and sorry for your downvotes. Take this thank you instead. :(

Offtopic, but wow this project is amazing. I just made Snape say "I love sprinkles on my donuts" and it made my day.

The quality of the discussion on HN remains high, while the quality of the discussion on much of the rest of the internet gets ever-worse. I routinely leave HN for the day a bit better informed than before, whereas most other sites I leave feeling way more emotional, and also probably a bit stupider (or at least less rational).

Such things don't happen by accident, and a lot of quality contributors is clearly not enough, or many other sites would be as good. Thanks, dang, for your work in keeping HN worth visiting. It becomes all the more impressive with each passing year.

I was a lurker on HN for years before I made my first account here, and dang was a name that kept popping up all over HN. I thought you were an addicted HN user at first, but after a while I got curious and read your post history, and that's when I figured out who you were.

I genuinely have a hard time believing you are one person. HN being one of the most important tools that contributed to my growth as a developer and a business owner, dang I feel I personally owe you so much for contributing so much to HN. Thank you dang.

p.s you are like a modern day good guy ninja. Hiding in the shadows taking out the bad guys :D

--edit--

Fixed a spelling error.

Normally, pointing out misspellings is bad form, but I can't not point out that your spelling of “popping” was rather misfortunate. I think I know how it happened, since it happens to me all the time: The brain does a lot of its work in parallel, and in mine, at least, there seems to be a separate part of the brain responsible for doubling letters as I type. And this being somewhat asynchronous, it occasionally doubles the wrong letter. (I don't know if the analysis is accurate, but the phenomenon is quite real.)

Haha good catch. A bit embarrassing for me, but this is hilarious. Thank you for pointing it out.

> The brain does a lot of its work in parallel

What happens to me oftentimes, when not focusing on what I'm typing, is that I misspell words like "theme" as "team". I think it's because my muscle memory sloppily translates what my brain is hearing since it's not focusing on the context, and those two words sound similar. This is also how "your" sometimes gets mixed with "you're", even though I most definitely know the difference and spot the mistake immediately when proofreading.

Same thing with “its” vs “it's”, I suspect. I got so confused once because of this, I started doubting which was which, so I looked it up. With the result that I now do an involuntary eye roll every time I see the wrong one.

In an insane world, Hacker News is one corner of the internet that I find to be "normal" and "sane". God Bless you Dang!

Why aren’t there more of these communities, and if there is I’d like to know.

All other communities are money driven ad bloated and later sponsored with bunch of crap products. And motivation is to promote stuff nonstop and moderation allows it. HN doesn't do any of those.

>All other communities are money driven

Not really, there are decent programming communities, but the ones I know aren't using english.

There are no communities like this because of Eternal September like phenomena. If HN acquires a million readers tomorrow, it'll be unrecognizable very soon. Nicheness on its own creates valuable communities. Another contributing factor is the 'appalling' UI. I love it, everyone else on HN loves it but an outsider is immediately repelled

I would be interested to know how many active users HN has, maybe it's because I'm in the bubble but I certainly feel like most people I meet who are "online" already know about it.

I have certainly noticed "ebbs" of an Eternal September vibe here too, but they quickly dispel and the types of comments that come from it get downvoted anyway, so it's not as noticeable.

Regardless, I am so grateful to have a place of meaningful discussion, and of so many different topics.

You are certainly in a bubble. I've never met another person who knows what HN is, and I'm a data scientist.

Around 5M monthly users depending on how you count them.

I think that nicheness strongly correlates with quality, but HN isn’t niche in the same way a forum on a specific topic is niche. Yet HN is still of decent quality. I guess what I’m trying to say is, why aren’t there more of these high-quality yet diverse communities.

Edit: Maybe being high quality and diverse is its niche!

> Another contributing factor is the 'appalling' UI

This was actually my only quibble with HN. I love the simplicity and the fact that HN doesn't suffer from the "obesity" that plagues modern websites, but I felt it could use some features.

For instance, the ability to filter it by time (it does have that filter already for days, months and so on, but not hours), or have an official app for the site could be awesome. Or a notification system. I already solved the first two of these issues by using 3rd party solutions (hckrnews.com and Materialistic) but supporting them officially would be great. I didn't find a solution for the 3rd issue, though; at least not one that I felt was useful.

But others don't feel the same way. When I googled around to see why these issues weren't addressed, the consensus seemed to be that there's no need for it for one reason or another. Oh, well. Other benefits of HN outweigh these minor issues, though. So overall, not that big of a deal for me.

If by notifications you mean replies to your comments, you can get that as an RSS feed.

[HnRSS](https://hnrss.github.io/)

Or email: http://www.hnreplies.com/ (by Dan Grossman)

The only feature I'd like is to be able to collapse threads. When there's lots of comments it can sometimes be almost impossible to work out what comment someone is replying to.

Collapsible threads have been a feature for a while now. Click the "[-]" or "[+]" beside the comment to close or open.

Oh, how weird. I've seen that [-] for god knows how long but it never even occurred to me that it would be a collapse button. For me it's in the "wrong" place, I'm used to expand/collapse functionality being on the left of the item to be expanded/collapsed. Thanks for that.

Some subreddits are good though by the way and don’t have external Septembers. Also some discords. I’m a bit afraid to say which though!

Yes, there are _many_ private subreddits with high quality content.

Doesn't even need to be private, it's usually a combination of strong moderation and/or a niche topic.

(though if it's too niche it might just be not that lively)

Yes, agreed. There are decent non-private ones, too.

Oops: s/x//

> Another contributing factor is the 'appalling' UI. I love it, everyone else on HN loves it but an outsider is immediately repelled

I think it's quite funny that the UI we prefer is so different from the ones we create in our daytime jobs. And it's also very different from the UIs in most "Show HN" posts.

> the UI we prefer is so different from the ones we create in our daytime jobs

Probably because we are not the ones who make the requirements

> And it's also very different from the UIs in most "Show HN" posts

... or maybe we are after all

If we tell you where they are, they won't be there anymore

HN discourages the sort of clever-yet-unsubstantial one-liner jokes that earn a lot of karma on Reddit. It reserves the space for thoughtful discussions. Getting rid of the memes simply doesn't fly in other online communities.

I'd also put money on the average age of HN commenter being higher than that of other internet communities.

I know of other rich and healthy online communities, but they are fairly niche.

I also feel the text-only format and less visible “points”/“likes” has something to do with it. It’s harder to be attention-grabbing with just text. In many ways, HN feels to me like an online email thread.

HN is just another echo-chamber minus the puns.

trivially disproven

Is it? Controversial opinions are downvoted here, too. The Overton window is real.

:s/Controversial/nonsensical/g

:s/nonsensical opinions/opinions I disagree with/g

No, not really. You can't 'disagree' with pedophile politician rings any more than you can disagree with the moon landing having taken place. The one is reality, the other is not. That's what the nonsensical stands for.

It is quite interesting what people are willing to believe when individuals in power state these things with great certainty. But personally I prefer to have my fiction and real-world views separated by a healthy dose of skepticism.

Those get downvoted too, as do controversial opinions.

The Overton window is real, but it's fairly wide open.

I could post a pro-socialism argument and get upvoted, I could post a pro-capitalism argument and get upvoted. I could criticize GMOs, or praise them. I could probably defend Trump if I'm thoughtful about it, or decry him.

Can I say "Capitalism/Socialism/GMOs/Trump is dumb" and get upvoted? No. Can I point out problems (or benefits) of them? Yes--so long as I'm not inflammatory about it.

When a post involves gender and/or race, the Overton window is quite narrow. Those appear to be the most controversial with the comments section filled with snark and polemics.

Hacker News has puns occasionally.

Everyone that comes here for the comments leaves comments that others like to come here for.

It's the good old "Culture eats strategy for breakfast."

I love HN culture.

> I'd also put money on the average age of HN commenter being higher than that of other internet communities.

That might be true. However, from my experience maturity is way more important than actual age. Some maturity comes with age, but a lot of it is also individual behaviour in my opinion.

A good majority of HNers may also be Redditors.

Many probably are. The ones that do well on both sites know how to adjust their comments to match the site they’re on.

I think that the major filter is this: In order to receive the main benefit from Hacker News you will have to expend effort in reading and digesting the content, and engaging in meaningful discussion where possible. There are much better places to gain instant gratification.

Not the same of course but I like the intelligent discussions over at metabunk.org sometimes.

Professional moderation is expensive. Keeping HN as good as it is is literally dang's job, paid for by YCombinator (who benefit from it by using it to recruit and then promote startups).

This makes sense, although it clearly isn't enough to induce HN-like moderation. Surely there are professional moderators on similar platforms such as Reddit (besides just their volunteer subreddit moderators), and there are certainly professional moderators on Facebook as well given their revenue streams. Neither website has arrived at something like Hacker News, at least as I value it. Part of this might be the scale of those websites because it's presumably difficult to scale up moderation teams that require human training.

It is extremely tiring moderating a forum. PG even said it is worst than doing a Startup. And if you have done any sort of public forum moderation, you will know you could get burn out very quickly.

From ~14 to 23, I volunteer moderated some gaming forums (~300k+ user size).

By and large, it wasn't terrible. Most people are nice and some have bad days.

What it did convince me of was the immense value of (a) down-featuring new users & (b) temp-banning.

Most of the trouble stemmed from either new users (by definition, uncultured) or a small subset of toxic users.

Because ultimately, communities are like biological systems, with far too many processes and independent entities going on to be controlled. In environments like that, toxic behavior can be cancerous by convincing others it's acceptable. And by the time you've found the source, multiple people are already acting like that too. Hate breeds hate.

Burn out is real though, mostly because it's a never ending job, and you tend to see a stream of people at their worst.

So thanks, dang et al. I appreciate you on the job, and I appreciate you more staying on the job.

>down-featuring new users

What is this?

I assume they meant restrictions or limits are applied to new users. New users could be prevented from creating a new topic or be limited on the amount of comments they can make.

> Why aren’t there more of these communities, and if there is I’d like to know.

Come on, the Internet is vast, of course there are many communities like this one. But most people in those communities, like myself, do not advertise them. We do not want them ruined. You find them either by chance, or by invitation.

Please consider answering this. Are those interesting communities on IRC or the web based non searchable community sites like discord. ?

Many good reasons are already mentioned, but I also think a big one is because dang is here full time. This is job and he does it well.

Almost all other internet communities have mods that just do it on a volunteer basis. If those communities are big enough to be vibrant, that also means that a couple volunteer mods can't cut it. Luckily YC has the budget for keeping dang around. I would bet this place would be like most other poorly moderated communities without him.

Then you haven't been here long enough my friend. Welcome aboard!

It is neither normal nor sane. More like the Stepford Wives.

HN is insane in a good way. You'll find so many people from various background with the most esoteric hobbies and interests. I love this community.

Thanks dang for helping us keep the signal-to-noise ratio high throughout the years!

I've had a couple links I've submitted that didn't get much attention, followed by an email from dang that it was a legit post that deserved attention and an opportunity to repost the next day. Every time I've replied with gratitude and compliments, and he was gracious, helpful, and humble.

Those interactions and attention to moderation keep me here. Moderating this sort of thing is no light task and I have a huge amount of respect for those who keep it sane, fun, cordial, and interesting

Thanks dang!

As much as people complain about the community in here, this is the best online community I'm part of (even if as a lurker mostly), and I'm always impressed by the quality of moderation. And now that I find out it's only dang doing it, it's even more impressive. Well done and keep up the good work!

For anyone looking for a Thanksgiving-evening behind the scenes deep dive, here's some lite reading: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...

Thank you dang! HN is one of the few places on the internet that feels the same as it did 10 years ago.

That New Yorker article is what led me to start reading HN. I don't work in IT and am not a hacker by any means, but the quality of the discussions has made it one of my favorite places on the Internet. My deepest thanks to dang and to all of the contributors.

what are your other favorite places?

Private group chats, unfortunately. It’s hard to have a public one stay high quality.

yeah that makes sense. any tips on how to go about find them?

Try paid membership forums. People tend to behave better, and have an interest in keeping the community in order, when they spend money.

what kind? im sure you're not talking about onlyfans, but are you referring to the comments sections of paid magazine subscriptions?

> what are your other favorite places?

Various newspaper and magazine sites, and the Internet Archive. No other discussion or conversation sites.

"He renamed the site Hacker News, and expanded its focus to include “anything that good hackers would find interesting . . . anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity."

Well, that about describes it :3

Please, for the good of humanity, lock Dang in a room with an unlabeled set of comment training data and make an AlphaDang.

Unleashing the benevolent AlphaDang moderation AI across the internet will salvage the web, and ultimately all of mankind.

If you believe this will work, you have not understood what makes dang so good at his job.

He's a thoughtful, understanding, caring human being, not a big pile of auto-correlating code.

I think a lot of people don't appreciate the fact of how terrible HN would be if the moderators decidedly to complete leave for a set amount of time (and I love HN as it is, just there is a lot of bad content that gets (auto)removed). They're good at being visible only when they need to be, and so it's nice that many users recognize the great and constant work they do.

Yup, my account is over 11 years old and still going strong! Previous forums I used were:

1. the Joel on Software forum, which was great, with a similar clean design, but didn't last as long (Joel got tired of moderating it, probably)

https://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/ (now has an outdated cert :-( )

2. Usenet. Epic thread that gives you a picture of what happened to Usenet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24772142 (a flame war between drummers went on for 20 years, and one of them is even flamed 8 years after his death!!!)

Random sample of how bad it could be: https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.makers.percussion/c/-E...

> Usenet.

But that's like saying "email". USENET isn't a forum, it is a standard decentralized distribution mechanism owned by nobody (like email).

Some newsgroups were a disaster even back in '90 and many were awesome back then. Most decayed but even today there are a few corners of USENET which thrive (I still read a few newsgroups every week with trn).

Well, I'd say it's sort of like "Reddit". Despite being a bunch of different forums, Reddit has a certain feel.

Design choices in the software influence people's behavior, as well as influencing which people join and participate to begin with. I imagine Facebook groups are largely different than subreddits for the same reason.

I was a pretty early Reddit user, I think 2007 or so. And it definitely got worse, so by ~2012 I had almost entirely stopped using it.

But since ~2016, there are a couple communities I like, so I'm back on there. There could be gems on Usenet for sure ... but I checked the forums I used to frequent and you know what happened :)

But reddit is a proprietary platform, not a protocol.

What I was getting at is that NNTP and SMTP (and the infrastructure surrounding the protocols) is all standard and non-proprietary, nobody owns them and anyone can run them so there can be as many communities as may be interested.

Thanks dang! I lurk 24/7/365 and rarely login to comment, but I always see you posting helpful things in threads, referencing other pages when comments get too long, editing titles to be more helpful, keeping discussions from devolving into arguments, and just overall keeping the quality of HN high. You're doing great and everyone here appreciates what you do!

I think we also need to highlight that Dang is also responsible for creating the mechanisms and rules for an environment which nudges everyone to be better (manner-wise, research-wise, skill-wise) without breaking their soul. On the contrary, it's one of the most well-mannered/civilized discussion environment and, one of the handful places which improved me in many fronts.

Of course there are exceptions but, it's much better than some of the places which just punish you for being late, being a beginner, making a mistake or just thinking differently.

He might be the sole reason that I'm attached to this place like a koala defending his branch.

Thanks a lot, honestly.

I don't panic often, but I thought this must have been a send-off tribute, and I panicked.

I once reached out to dang to have a comment deleted and he suggested I keep it because it was constructive and contributed to the community. I was so surprised to suddenly be engaged with a thoughtful and positive person. Thanks dang, that kind of interaction matters. I still appreciate that.

I am out of almost all social networks. HN is the only one that I still visit for intellectual inspiration.

Thank you Dang!

HN is my Facebook. I don’t miss Facebook. I don’t miss Twitter. The only two social networks I have is HN and Whatsapp (for family groups).

I hope dang has Ycombinator equity because he deffo deserves a part of the success.

Thanks a lot Dang and Thanks to the entire HN community! This community is really my goto place in the morning when I wake up, in my lunch time and once before I doze off.

What I most like about this group is that I can relate to a lot of the members who have similar experiences, stories and interests. This is the first online community that I feel I really belong.

Thanks HN for "making everyday a little bit better!" :-)

Dang has taught us that ONE person can make a difference. Be like Dang!

@dang has been an inspiration to me in how to moderate and build communities, and im sure im not alone. his work may be more impactful than he realizes! Thanks Dan!

This belongs here as well. Thank you to a dang despite my occasionally idiotic, off-topic slashdot-esqe comments that do not necessarily contribute to the font of knowledge that is this site.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...

Hey don't forget sctb!

sctb stopped working on HN last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25055115

It says something that this forum has researchers, astrophysicists, farmers, ux-ers, entrepreneurs, programmers, democrats, republicans, Russians, Americans etc from 13 to 80(?) discussing more or less peacefully.

Thanks for moderating and thanks for actually answering my mails dang!

Hear hear. Thanks dang, you set the gold standard for moderation. Or, if you prefer, you set a high bar for moderation. To mix metaphors painfully, you set a gold bar. Which just goes to show how valuable good moderation is.

I'm a lurker, just made an account the other day, but have to say - you do awesome work dang - Thank you!

Thank you dang.

I really appreciate the moderation of HN, and looking back at everything, makes me appreciate it even more.

Thank you dang! In all my years here I needed only once to get in touch with the mod team and it was one of the most pleasant chats I had with any kind of community moderation so far.

Thanks for enforcing the standards of this community through the years, I believe HN might have grown a lot in userbase but the side-effects of that have been pretty minimal so far. This is not an easy task for any online community.

Thanks, Dang.

If HN is like a flowing river that supplies the world with wisdom and perspective, Dang is the filter that removes pollutants and the keeper that adds tributaries.

People around the globe are indebted to your tireless and exemplary moderation of the HN community. The kindness, graciousness, and patience you exhibit -- even in the face of nasty remarks and biting insults -- is a model for everyone to emulate.

Thank you, dang. HN wouldn't be what it is without your moderation. So often I see threads on sensitive topics threaten to spiral out of control before your interventions, which are always calm and well-chosen. You have somehow managed to keep a growing internet forum consistently respectful, and I can't imagine how difficult of a task that must be.

I've received a warning from dang a few times on here. Thanks dang for the work you put in to keep this place great.

Thanks Dang! I have learned a lot here, met some interesting people, and am consistently surprised by the diversity and depth of other people's take on things.

Lots of good "voice of experience" to be had as well. High value.

Appreciated.

Hacker news keeps me up-to-date on the latest buzz, the most interesting and unusual corners of the interwebs. The value derived from the comments is usually greater than the original article itself. Thank you Dang.

Dang, thank you so much for what you do. I feel like I've become a better, more mature person from having participated in this forum, and that's pretty much squarely on you dude. Thank you.

For a very long time, I had no idea HN had any sort of moderation and I can never remember thinking that it should. I think that's a great tell about the quality of work that dang is doing here.

Thank you, dang!

Thank you Dan and Scott! I’ve learned a lot and definitely advanced my career and personal life thanks to the stories and the comments on hn. I’m so thankful for all you do to keep it this way!

Nothing against Scott, but he left! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21930336

Dang has always been a moderating voice. He/she doesn't just take action, but gives irrefutable reason.

On the subject of being a better human, dang has been an influential teacher.

I thoroughly enjoy shitposting and consider it a form of entertainment, youtube comments being one of my favorite.

I’m incredibly thankful for HN but not everything needs to be great.

This is definitely the best community out there that I know of and it's largely thanks to your efforts (along with the knowledgeable posters) - thank you dang!

Yes. Thank you Dang. The community, and more specifically 'comment SNR' in Hacker News is really fantastically high, and you deserve a lot of praise for that. I also very much like the fact that the website is basically html 1 and loads very quickly. I'm not interested in the business / startup scene at all, but the sheer breadth of expertise and community in all areas of life is very much something to celebrate.

Thank you dang. HN has helped me develop in so many ways, and I will always be grateful for all the work you put in to make HN the magical, wacky place it is.

Oh, I've interacted with dang a few times. I appreciate your manner in which how you handle the requests. Thank you so much for your hard work <3

Thanks much @dang, for all the work you do for HN. You are a true inspiration for me to hone my own community-building and moderation skills.

I post online in very rare occasions, and this is one.

Dang, you deserve an heartfelt thank you for keeping healthy this community.

In the course of some years hn has become gradually my main source of news and many times the comments are actually more interesting than the story itself!

Considering the present state of the web, this is almost a miracle.

There is no place like home: thanks to your efforts hn is a safe place for me.

Have never commented and only lurk here from time to time but I would like to extend a big thank you to dang and the moderation team.

So many here report having been helped by dang. That's a tribute in itself.

Thanks for all the advice when I was new to HN. It is appreciated.

I'm pretty new to HN and didn't realize all of it was moderated by one person(s?). That's a gargantuan job, thanks so much, Dang!

Does Dang ever write about what it's like to moderate HN, and what tools s/he/they have at their disposal? Also, is Dang almost like a Satoshi or is it a real person??

This article might be a good starting point if you want to know more: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...

I'm not the only moderator, just the only one (now that Scott is gone) who posts publicly. The others do a great job!

Yes, thanks! HN is one place on the web where the commenters graciously hold each other to a high standard.

HN has been my “home ground” when launching new projects/products. It has helped me and my company tremendously.

Dang’s mod work has been amazing. I have always gotten reasonable and complete response from them here and on email. I have high respect for them.

I would love to know more about their moderation workflow.

I'd pitch YC on how to scale dang.

Yes, dang is exceptional at what he does. Thank you dang for giving us a place to enjoy civil discourse.

Thank you Dang, I never cease to be amazed by the quality of people and content on HN.

May it live long and prosper!

I've used HN for years and have learned a great deal from its discussion threads. If the mark of great moderation is to remain mostly unseen while maintaining civil discourse, the mods of HN must be doing very well indeed! Kudos to you mods!

Also chipping in to say thanks Dang. It really is appreciated and you do a great job.

Thanks, Dang! Also: thanks, HN community. I learned an incredible lot from you, from both the content posted as well as the comments here. But this community wouldn't be here without you, Dang!

Thank you, dang and sctb!

Thank you, Dang! I didn't know about you until I read this thread. Is it really just _one_ moderator on HN? I imagine it's more than a full-time job to manage that...

Just one full-time moderator I believe.

I'm not the only one, just the only one who posts publicly.

I would like to add a thanks to all the HN contributors (well, the vast majority at least) for following dang's lead and making this such a pleasant and informative forum.

I sincerely disagree, but wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

Yes, thank you dang - no discussion site does a better job of keeping the conversation open, relevant, and relatively troll free as HN does.

Thank you dang, for being a good guardian of such a wonderful place. Thank you for your patience when I've gotten overly excited.

The "invisible hand" of dang, but very much visible result that most every one appreciates when coming to HN. Thank you!

where is he? why is he not posting here? is dang even real?

maybe dang is just the acronym for the AI system of a new startup being incubated at YC

He is very much real.

https://blog.ycombinator.com/meet-the-people-taking-over-hac...

what does @dang look like?

I mean, it’s Thanksgiving holidays.

For some reason I didn't see this thread until someone randomly mentioned it to me a few minutes ago. What a nice surprise! Thank you all.

Thank you, Dang! This is one of the only forums I decided to stop lurking. You have helped foster a wonderful community here.

Thank you, Dang! It's hard to believe that the quality of HN rests on the shoulders of just one man – a Herculean feat!

We should feel gratitude for what we have. And then chase the ambitious. Easier said than done, but a useful philosophy.

Thank you, Dang!

The Hacker News community is my favorite thing on the internet - and a good chunk of its success is due to your hard work!

It's the only community I've found on the modern internet that I look forward to returning to on a daily basis

Thank you, Dang!

Thank you, Dang for helping keep one of the few non-secret communities on the web keep feeling like a community.

Just... Thanks!

Seeing many comments about how dang helped them get to the front-page... I guess many of us are just unlucky

Hacker News is small enough that dang will probably see a decent fraction of your content. The best way to get to the front page remains submitting quality content.

Thanks Dang! HN is one of my favorite online communities, in large part thanks to your hard work.

I always use this forum in read-only mode, but today I must do an exception: Thank you Dang!!!

Thank you Dan.

Dan also helped promote one of my open-source projects. I'm grateful for all that he does.

Dang, thanks. This year has been tougher than others, but you've done god's work.

Beautiful community, thanks Dang!

Thank you Dang!

Your work on HN has been tireless and awesome!

(Paul Graham, if you're listening, give Dan a raise!!!)

A thanks to dang's family as well - there's always someone sustaining us.

I don’t know how anyone notices the names of people on HN but dang seems cool

Impressive how patient and kind dang can stay whilst explaining a tangent.

Dankjewel dang!

I wake up every morning to great content. Thanks HN Community and dang!

Add my thank You dang to the list! Your work is genuinely appreciated.

Thanks to Paul, Dan and Scott for keeping the community calm and well.

I'm new to HN. Is Scott 'sctb , and is he still involved in moderation?

Looks like he's not https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21930336

Thank you Dang, I appreciate all the work you do to keep HN awesome!

Thank you Dang, for helping me with a show HN and testing an idea :)

Thank you Dang, your levelheaded moderation makes this place great.

Indeed, thanks for keeping the community vibrant. Thank you, Dang.

I aspire to be in Dang's position in my retirement years!!

thank you & Happy Thanksgiving dang & everyone else :D

Thanks for all that you do Dang! I really appreciate you!

dang, can we can change the title to dang, thank you?

dang, thanks!

Your work's much appreciated, DanG, thanks.

Thank you, Dang!

Thank you dang!

Thank you, dang! Keep up the great work.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving Dang!!

My first comment... Dang is awesome

Thanks for all your hard work Dang.

Thank you for your great work dang

Thank you Dan! I hope all is well.

Thank you Dang, you are great :)

Thanks for the hard work Dang!

Oh, my, yes... Thank you Dang!

Thank you guys for all your well wishes. It's been a privilege serving this community.

(psst, thanks realdang)

Thanks Dang for your work!

Thanks very much, Dang.

Thank you so much dang

Thank you dang <3

Big Thank You Dang!

Thank you, dang! :)

Thank you, dang :)

Thank you dang! :D

Thank you, dang!

Thank you, Dang!

Thank you, Dang.

Thank you, dang!

Thank you, Dang!

Thank you, dang!

Thank you! <3

Thank you, Dang!

Thank you dang!!

Thank you, Dang!

Thank you, dang!

Thank you, Dang!

Thank you, dang!

Thank you, Dang!

Thank-you Dang!

Thank you Dang!

Thank you, Dang

Thank you Dang!

Thank you Dang.

Thank you Dang!

Thank you dang!

Thank you Dang!

Thank you Dang

Thank you dang

Thank you Dang

Thanks dang :)

Thanks Dang!

Thanks, Dan.

+1 to that.

Shukran Dan

+1 from me.

Thanks bud!

Danke Dang

Yes.

thank you dang :)

resourceful

I'm looking forward to what http://n-gate.com says about this discussion.

Dangsgiving

Thank you, dang!

Thanks again!

basically, "Dang moderates in a way that's good for me".

Thank you dang! (considering being critical gets you banned, this is the only comment you can make in this thread)

There are plenty of ways to be critical on HN and people do it all the time. The best way to be critical is to supply missing information, explain how to do something more effectively or see it more accurately—then we all learn something. The main thing we don't want is people putting each other down or being gratuitously mean.

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