Hacker News Reader

Comment by viklove | Hacker News Reader

HN is an extremely authoritarian web forum, maintained this way solely to prop up the reputation of YC as an organization. You're not allowed to have certain opinions because it will make the platform look bad, but of course censorship goes against the core beliefs of the western world so they can't exactly be transparent about it.

The more experience I have with this site, the more I've found myself hating it. And the smugness of the users here who believe HN is the one-true-forum is the turd on top of the shitcake for me.

View on HN

Oh boy - I have been here for 12 years or so, and I don't really agree with this take at all. Maybe I am biased, but I think the conversations here are more open and more frank than most (or any) other places on the internet.

The parent comment is already greyed out, so yes, maybe you're biased.

The parent comment made some bold assertions with no facts (anecdotal or otherwise) to back them up. I'm not surprised that some people feel that the argument is in bad faith.

Yes, it appears that way because of the way the moderation works. Comments that HN wants to be hidden just get sent to the bottom of the comment stack, then grayed out, then hidden. You probably believe that only comments that users downvote get sent to the bottom, but no, there is a secret rating system controlled by the mods that causes certain comments to behave as if they were already downvoted. It's an opaque system that is selectively applied so as to conceal its nature.

If the system were honest and fair, the mods would have no reason to hide their behavior.

Now I have to be careful, I've posted 3 comments in the last hour and I'm running up against my rate limit since the mods have highlighted me as a troublemaker. Can't say too much exposing the secret system of moderation here, they don't like that.

This sounds like conspiracy theory stuff. There's this secret bad stuff that I know about, but you don't because "they" hide the evidence.

So, how do you know? What is your objectively verifiable evidence that this secret system exists?

Or are you just referring to the editors' ability to kill a post that they deem to be against the site guidelines? They have that power, but it's not a secret.

It's not that hard to notice, there's just no official documentation or explanation of what these mechanics are and that's the extent of how "secret" it is. I think if you search dang's comment history he mentions it a few times, and obviously if you look for anecdotes you'll find plenty of users on this platform that have been rate limited, and deprioritized on other ways to have their opinions filtered out of the conversation.

Selective moderation is also a big problem on this platform. Rules only apply to certain groups of people, basically at dang's discretion.

The biggest problem with this platform is that there is no moderation log. The mod team works in an opaque manner, making it hard to prove or disprove the claims I was making. If we could just see a list of all comments dang had deleted, and the true vote count of each comment, we could all see exactly what the mod team was doing and be confident in its fairness.

That's obviously not the case though, and HN keeps this information from us to protect their image.

Authoritarian is a bit harsh. That implies the moderators delete and ban anything that goes against a particular set of narratives. I have not seen that to be the case. There are topics and opinions that the user-base will downvote and some topics that are likely to start flame wars. In the case of down-voting, it helps to know your audience. In such cases one could just create their own forum that caters to topics that don't resonate here. I've done that for several topics and kept it entirely separated from HN. It would be unfair of me to assume I can change the acceptable use policies of a site or the reaction of its audience based on my preferences.

If I may, allow me give you one unsolicited advice I've been slowly learning through the years:

Most things in life have their downsides and shortcomings. We should strive to minimize the impact of those and instead capitalize on their strengths. Take what good you can from HN and run with it. HN is great in many ways.

I disagree. I think HN is good in some ways, but awful in many other ways so much so that it overshadows the good. Unfortunately the good can trick honest people like yourself into thinking the platform as a whole is good, but hey, you're entitled to your opinion.

Neither dang nor hu3 went over to your place, pointed a gun at your head, and forced to to hang out on a website you hate. If you think HN is awful in so many ways, vote with your feet. Go somewhere you like better. Why hang out here to complain about here?

Because I have bad impulse control, and dang won't let me delete my account :)

Apparently once you sign up for HN they have the right to keep your soul locked up here forever.

I've asked for them to delete my account or permaban me for over a year, but users just don't have rights here and that's just the mentality that dang has always had.

I'm guessing this doesn't apply to HN jurisdiction?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561884

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23008642

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22892517

How about you guys just implement an account deletion button and treat your users like actual people?

> Even if you send them an email, apparently they're "too backed up" to handle account deletion requests

I've searched and found no record of you emailing us. Did you mention the account name? We process these requests literally every day, so I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with these claims.

I think it's pretty clear what I'm trying to achieve. I'm trying to get you guys to implement an account deletion button in user settings like you should have. I should not have to expose my personal email by contacting you in order to do so. How would you even know the request was legit? I have no email associated with my account.

There are many other ways to establish that someone owns an account.

"Trying to get you guys" to do something that we've explained in the FAQ that we don't do and why, is off topic, and repeatedly posting the same complaints and false claims in the threads is trolling. Please knock it off. If you don't like how HN works, you needn't use it. It's just an internet forum.

It's not off topic, this article is about HN's features and I'm discussing HN's features.

Just because you have something in your FAQ doesn't mean it's off-limits for discussion. You can post whatever you want there, and I can choose to disagree with it. It's one of many reasons why my disdain for this site grows with each passing day.

And they're not false claims. You guys absolutely do not have an account delete button, and you guys absolutely do deprioritize accounts and comments in an opaque manner to limit their exposure.

If you want me to stop complaining, stop using subterfuge to accomplish nefarious objectives. Be transparent about the moderation on this platform.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com