Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeroenhd | Hacker News Reader

The author of the website details their issue with the way HN does moderation (which I can't say I disagree with, especially after HN intentionally disabled referrer headers for websites that take issue with HN). This only shows up if HN is in the referer URL.

I wouldn't call it a rant, but rather a polite request for HN policy to change.

View on HN

> I wouldn't call it a rant, but rather a polite request for HN policy to change.

Which is made by blocking people with no ability to do anything about it.

What? All you need to do is resubmit the request without a Referer header. For me, using Firefox, this meant clicking in the address bar, changing nothing, and hitting enter.

That's hardly "no ability to do anything about it".

I mean people with no ability to alter HN moderation policy.

Consider it like this:

    1. I think, "oh, that looks relevant, let me open that link".
    2. I get a screenful of objections to HN moderation.
    3. I shrug and close the tab.

Since I'm just a normal user who can't change HN moderation, the outcome is that HN doesn't change but I walk away with a worse opinion of the Asahi Linux folks.

Weird: HN is supposed to be technical but the people behind Asahi Linux have proven themselves to be technical wizards; meanwhile HN seems more interested in money and pseudo-libertarian politics than transformitive technical excellence. But such is our age.

HN has actually drifted far, far to the left of where it started.

It was called Startup News at the beginning. Of course, it's gonna be interested in money and money making. Duh.

It certainly didn't worsen my opinion of the Asahi Linux folks. On the contrary, I commend them for standing up for what they feel is right.

I also doubt they really care whether or not any particular HN reader has a positive or negative opinion of them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com