Comment by y-c-o-m-b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by y-c-o-m-b | Hacker News Reader

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Dang has already addressed this:

> It's common, if not inevitable, for people who feel strongly about $topic to conclude that the system (or the community, or the mods, etc.) are biased against their side (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). One is far more likely to notice whatever data points that one dislikes because they go against one's view and overweight those relative to others (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). This is probably the single most reliable phenomenon on this site. Keep in mind that the people with the opposite view to yours are just as convinced that there's bias, but they're sure that it's against their side and in favor of yours.

As an "outside observer" to the insanity in this thread, I think your post and others like it only solidify Dang's point on this. In your eyes there will never be an opposing viewpoint to yours that you don't consider "anti-Israel". It'll always seem as such to you regardless of any rational explanation.

Edit: this also goes for the poster that is indiscriminately going around throwing "zionist" labels against anyone that opposes their views. Which once again, solidifies Dang's point. Both you and they will always proclaim "bias!"

Dang's point is moot (thanks dredmorbius for pointing this out) because the evidence of when he chooses to unflag posts have a clear bias, and he isn't transparent when he chooses to not intervene to allow flag posts, which also shows his bias, these discussions brings nothing to HN and are not in the spirit of HN regardless if it's pro or anti Israel or any other country. My point is that this is HN, this isn't /r/news or /r/worldnews, politics don't have a place on this platform.

"In your eyes there will never be an opposing viewpoint to yours that you don't consider "anti-Israel". It'll always seem as such to you regardless of any rational explanation." - You don't know me, my opinions or my thought, what I'm for or against.

s/mute/moot/

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moot>

<https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/moot-or-mute>

Dang's generally happy to respond to emails inquiring as to practices, though he's increasingly complaining about email load: <hn@ycombinator.com>

I've done my own analysis of front-page activity on HN and, though that's a limited methodology, overall biases don't appear to be overt. Mostly, HN has difficulty in discussing controversial topics, whether political, technical, social, or other. That's inherent to the site mechanisms (voting, flagging, comments), and if anything mods intervene to counter that effect, though with limited success.

That's scattered over a number of comments, a general search will surface many of them:

<https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>

On general patterns: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36552720>

You can also review dang's visible comments (a small subset of overall moderation, most of which is NOT by mods at all but by member votes/flags), to see what if any biases emerge. Largely to the extent that there are it's a status quo bias with tone policing as a principle issue. He's been getting better on that last point in the past few years, though I'll occasionally still find what I find to be unwarranted or unsympathetic interventions. And I do mean occasional --- maybe a every few months, for the most part.

If you do want to address controversial topics, remaining within HN's guidelines will greatly increase your efficacy:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

I'd joined HN some time back feeling as if I were somewhat against the mainstream. I've had reasonable success in expressing my own views, and addressing bias whether through comments, votes, or emailing mods.

I appreciate your analysis and I would like, if you will, to focus on the controversial/flagged content analysis more.

What Dan has done is counter productive to his moderation efforts. If what you say is true that 'HN has difficulty in discussing controversial topics' and that the mods have 'limited success' he shouldn't have unflagged this item and just locked it for comments, he and the team can't possibly moderate an almost 1k comments post.

Again, HN mods don't do most moderation on site, and see only a very small sampling of comments (<https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>).

I don't know if they have specific tools to identify potentially problematic posts (P3?), though the flamewar detector and member flags would be obvious proxies. I've often had success in emailing specific issues (e.g., "ideological battle", "personal attacks", etc.)

But the way to address HN guidelines violations is to vote and flag violations yourself, and email mods for egregious cases. Perpetuating flamewars and violations is right out: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.

If you'll spend a few moments contemplating what it takes to discuss highly controversial topics, political or otherwise, I suspect you'll realise that HN simply isn't equipped for that, and that very few open-access sites are.

(That'd be "none" in my experience, though I really wish it weren't the case. And if anyone cares to suggest what might make this possible or suggest literature on the topic, I'd appreciate it. Jürgen Habermas is the usual susepct though I haven't gone over his work on social discourse as thoroughly as I'd like.)

Edit/addition: HN moderation follows guidelines rather than content (to the extent that these can be distinguished). Which means that mods look to the guidelines for how to moderate, or justify those moderation decisions. The other site characteristic dang's commented on several times is how fragile the entire community is, and that most of the moderation is geared more around maintaining the community rather than bolstering or suppressing specific viewpoints (see: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>). Again, I've concerns with how this tends toward status quo bias, though that doesn't seem to be the principle focus of your own concerns here.

And on analysing post flags, I simply don't have insights into that data, though there are some proxies for this which I'd commented on in the comments search linked earlier. (Mostly: what topics/sites tend to see more/less flame/spiciness tendencies. Sites / topics (or word tokens) / submitters with a high comments-to-votes ratio would tend to be "spicier", and in general, odds are greater that moderator intervention has occurred for those cases. I've not looked into that specifically however.

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