Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I "think", most of those debate ties with technology one way or another. Say Joe Rogan's issue may not have been allowed on HN if it wasn't for Spotify.

And more broadly speaking, what are the roles of technology in an extremely political sensitive climate. Should Telegram do A or B, and what about Whatsapp, Facebook moderation, Apple App Store disallow certain group, is that a curation problem or a political problem? Fake News, Yellow Journalism, none of these are "new". But now they happen on Tech rather than traditional media, is that a tech problem or a political problem? We just dont have any concrete answer.

There are other Geopolitics issues. I mean if WW3 did start surely that is important enough for HN submission. Or China decide to invade Taiwan, so to speak. Surely the threat of TSMC Foundry supply is important enough for submission even if the article itself doesn't mention TSMC.

So while the rule is not black and white as zero politics discussions. I think the moderation is fairly consistent. Still dont know how Dang manages it. To the point I sometimes worry about him leaving YC, and HN may never be the same again.

This sort of reminds me of what happened to the Slashdot... everyone was playing video games, hacking with Arduinos, doing silly things with homelabs, arguing about OS X vs. Linux, etc. and then suddenly so many people in the community moved up through the ranks and started to interface with politics, policy, and international business, just as those things started to really change with tech. So ya, tech overflows itself.

In light of this pretty natural scope creep, I agree with the above point that the moderation feels pretty consistent, and am, for one, extremely appreciative of Dang's work.

I think slashdot went down with users when they introduced the massively unpopular "web 2.0" redesign. It was unusable in that layout and they never reverted it back. I think the only users there are the ones using the old layout and know how to turn it on.

Shame really as it it was the best automoderated system I've ever seen.

I'm replying for my own self-history ;

Slashdot was also a heavily BOFH type of site...

If you broke from the narrative, you were massively attacked...

That said, I was a very early user in /. - so much so that some of the prominent users I hired as linux tech consultants prior to LinuxCare... (long story and ego-s begone)

/. waned in my regular internet consumption though...

> I "think", most of those debate ties with technology one way or another.

Nah. Yesterday's political topic (there's almost always at least one per day) was about the WWII Tokyo firebombing.

I think the real answer is even simpler: I think dang (or whoever is on duty that day) asks themselves "is this topic going to lead to an interesting conversation, or will it devolve into a shitshow?" Shitshows generally get canned, no matter the subject. It's benign dictatorship at work.

I "think" you both are missing the point of HN ;

HN, to me (and I am long in the tooth on this site), is about that which is fascinating to the mind, with a culture of good, meaningful content which is relevant to said minds...

Politics permeate our lives - and especially moreso now. (FB was never a thought re politics when it was born, but it has so much mindshare now that its inexcusable to not think of FB as a political force (even though its literally a revolving door with government security apparatai)

Also, @Dang is a fucking bad-ass... He is probably the best mod I have ever encountered...

He has on multiple occasions put me in my place, gently, as I tend to post heavy handed comments when drunk and we have gone at it and agreed about when we both posted drunken rage comments...

Yet @Dang ALWAYS replies to my emails and helps me when I ask for it...

I've been on HN/YC for a long time -- @Dang has never failed being just an awesome mod of this forum.

---

The culture of HN posting is golden, thus far, and this forum is something to be protected. @Dang needs a mod protege to take the reigns when he decides to go live his fuck-you money on an island.

> was about the WWII Tokyo firebombing

My opinion is that as a topic belongs to "History" rather than politics. But I understand why people might disagree. I mean even my reply above is getting a lot of upvoted and downvoted at the moment.

But I do agree with the interesting conversation and shitshow being the simpler answer.

> I think the real answer is even simpler: I think dang (or whoever is on duty that day) asks themselves "is this topic going to lead to an interesting conversation, or will it devolve into a shitshow?" Shitshows generally get canned, no matter the subject. It's benign dictatorship at work.

You're not wrong, I suspect....but as always, I am fascinated by how Dang and most people here seem to have utterly no curiosity about why the big brains at HN News re unable to engage in conversation about ~politics without it melting down into chaos like you'd find on most any other forum.

We often have these "serious" discussions about the dangers of climate change, fake news, etc, how it's super duper important that humanity gets its shit together, but is humans being able to communicate with each other in a skillful manner about difficult topics not plausibly a prerequisite for accomplishing these things that we talk about humanity "must" do? And if we not only can't do it, but refuse to even consider discussing the matter, then what shall become of the world?

I have been sternly warned about this message before, which I believe illustrates the validity of my point.

> I "think", most of those debate ties with technology one way or another.

I feel that, if this is the reasoning it's becoming more prevalent, then it should be reeled in a bit. Politically charged topics seem to rarely bring in good-faith discussion I have come to expect from HN.

They are easy to avoid howerver. Not participating in them and upvoting other contents solve the issue at least for yourself.

I do avoid them, but they tend to crowd the front page where I feel like other topics that are more interesting and on topic for the site get left on pages 2-4, not seeing nearly as much interaction as they would have otherwise.

Yup. This is the answer. If something political is posted its one of many items on the front page. Ignore it and upvote content you find interesting. Even better browse new posts instead of only the front or first few pages.

> Even better browse new posts instead of only the front or first few pages.

Yes! No story makes it to the front page unless enough people upvote it on the "new" page. Thus, upvoting a new a story gives you much more editorial influence over the contents of the front page than upvoting a story that has already made it there. (And it takes fewer people to flag away an off-topic story while it's still new.)

Another perspective: By browsing the front page, you're looking at stories that other HN readers find interesting. By reading the "new" page, you have the ability to promote stories that you think are interesting.

Incorrect. This is what we were told about Reddit as we watched it become basically unusable as a platform. Voting alone isn’t a proper way to guarantee quality discussion (the opposite actually.)

True, but whatever mechanism takes its place must contend with the fact that users vary in the extent they: 1) actively think of the larger community vs. themselves as a member; and 2) derive individual esteem from it.

As an example, the karma system at Reddit looks fine on paper relative to #1, but #2 is what created the phenomenon of meandering threads full of single phrase bad puns. The users are converging on a local maximum gain of esteem via upvotes, per unit of effort as measured by post length.

Reddit is essentially the only platform left, which makes it a difficult example of an unusable one. I think it's actually gotten so big that its old problems (every reply being the same joke) were solved by having new users voting that don't all like the same jokes.

We should be stricter with requiring a genuine technical connection. “Has a podcast on Spotify” or “fundraised through GoFundMe” don’t count. Journalists throw in recognizable names whenever possible because they get clicks, even though the topic is completely non-technical.

Or even (non-political) articles like "some web site got hacked" or "a Tesla crashed somewhere" or "web site X is down". Unless there's real technical detail in such a story (which there hardly ever is when the story first comes out), it doesn't encourage meaningful discussion, only baseless speculation about what might have happened.

inb4 HN stories about Canadian truckers are just gorilla advertising for self-driving trucks! New marketing slogan: "Self-driving truck don't need to get vaccine" /s

Even there many of the stories have been about tech company involvement; GoFundMe, data leaks, social media bans, etc.

Canadas moves on bank accounts and how that ties to crypto robustness is already being discussed :)

Guerrilla.

The last time I saw a promotional sidewalk character in action frantically waving his signage, has was in an actual gorilla costume, not revolutionary but that's advertising.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com