Comment by benjamincburns | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benjamincburns | Hacker News Reader

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I asked a very similar question of dang [1] about two months ago when he decided to change an article's URL to one I added to the comments [2].

His response to me (w/ irrelevant stuff redacted):

    The short answer is that HN's goal is quality, so that's
    what we optimize for. Optimizing means trading other things
    away. One thing we're willing to trade away–if it's a clear
    win for quality–is fidelity to the original submission. HN's
    focus should always be on the content, and the details of the
    original submission are of little interest compared to the
    subject at hand.
    
    HN isn't a purist's kind of place. Our goal to make the
    front page and the threads as interesting and substantive
    as possible. We change a lot of things to serve that
    principle. If we knew how to serve it better, we'd happily
    break more crockery to do so.
    
    Someone (perhaps a purist!) will object that terms like
    "quality", "interesting", and "substantive" have no precise
    definitions and are in the eye of the beholder. True, but (a)
    they're not arbitrary either, (b) the alternatives suck, and
    (c) someone has to make the calls. We don't get them all right,
    but we do try hard to correct mistakes, and I'll defend the
    principle any day.

1: dang = Daniel Gackle, HN's moderator. http://blog.ycombinator.com/meet-the-people-taking-over-hack...

2: Original thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7747401

Maybe there should be some indication on the post that the article/title was changed so the edits aren't attributed to the original submitter. This would at least resolve that confusion.

It seems like the current model tries to be like SlashDot (where everything curated) but retains the appearance of user-driven content by keeping it's curation hidden.

When an article and/or title is changed, I'd like to see a comment with the original title and a link to the original article. I should note that dang often adds a comment that a change occurred -- which I appreciate -- but I'd like to see a little more context.

The modified/edited/curated title and/or URL could always be shown underneath or beside the original title and URL, which remain unchanged.

Or, how about "forking" posts. If the content is truly of higher quality, then the fork will be up-voted more from that point on. If not, then the original post will be. And why must the article be attributed to only one person. Karma could be shared by some mechanism if a forked post gits [sic] more up-votes.

I think "hellbanning" should also be a part of this conversation. The combination of mods non-transparent editing practices and hellbanning makes an extremely strong case for categorizing the mod system as a form of censorship.

HN is a private website. So, I fully believe that HN should be allowed to censor if it would like to. I certainly at times censor my friends when they post to my facebook wall. But my facebook wall isn't a community. And it doesn't purport to provide news. Thus, I believe HN should be held to a higher standard.

I wonder why the parent comment was voted down. I don't see anything wrong with it. In fact, it has some perfectly reasonable ideas and suggestions.

I find it odd that people within the discussion here can suggest that bad flagging or bad voting isn't an issue, when we have a perfect example of it involving what's currently the 7th comment from the top.

I'm just at a complete loss at to how I was down-voted so much without a single comment as to the reason why. I was trying to be constructive and on topic.

You were lawyering about whether or not something is censorship, but the question of what words to assign to what acts has nothing to do with the question at hand. You made a weak argument to declare X, then presumed X in a weak argument to declare Y, and you tried to amplify your argument simply by declaring that you're being convincing.

Also you took the opportunity to be clever with some weird pun about git(?) and readers probably inferred certain things about your motivations for making a post.

I see your 'straw man' and raise you an 'ad hominem'. I've just read through your HN comments. You're consistently extremely negative, to no purpose. "Your argument sucks because..." etc.

Yes, I am not that good at posting and I often get downvoted accordingly.

I simply don't like the fact that someone can change a link that I submitted to something else. Moderators have the right to kill a story or ban a user for valid reasons, but changing a link to point to another completely different article is just being pedantic and definitely crosses the line. We might as well then just post topics, and let the mods choose the best story for that topic.

I agree that mods changing submissions is a little like putting words in the original submitter's mouth, but if the practice is well known I don't think there's much harm in it.

Like I hinted at in the other thread, and as dang seems to confirm, it's an issue of purism vs pragmatism.

Then there should be a way to say:

    <a href={{new_link}}>new title</a> [changed from <a href={{old_link}}>old title</a>]

I don't think the practice is well known. I've been on HN for a year or something, and have seen reference to the practice in comments a maximum of 5 times. And I think I tend to read pretty deeply.

Since Dang has taken over as the main moderator and been more public about it, he's announced doing it more times than that.

Do people pay attention to who submits items? I never do. Maybe the display of the submitter could be removed without any loss.

Yes they do. Some people can get to front page at will. Now, whether that's good or not is a different discussion, but people trust their judgement so they get more weight.

I don't usually pay any attention to who submitted something, and one of the biggest issues I see with HN is the imbalance in points between someone who submits an article and someone who has valuable input in the discussion.

Half of my karma is from 2 submissions but I think a good comment is much more valuable that being the first person to submit a link.

> Do people pay attention to who submits items?

Would we be having this conversation if they didn't?

I think he primarily referred to other readers, this topic was posted by a submitter.

What you fail to articulate is how anybody benefits from seeing the old URL.

It's a problem when there is discussion about a submission, then the URL is changed to a somewhat different article, and the existing discussion no longer makes as much sense.

Ripping away the original context unexpectedly is the problem. So making the original context more accessible is one good solution to this problem.

I've seen that happen, and you'll never believe what happens next:

The people on the thread, being adults, write a couple sentences about how the story there were commenting on used to say something else.

For many of us, this infinitesimal inconvenience is more than offset by the improved experience of not clicking through blogspam to get to the right sources. Nine times out of ten, when this happens, the original submission is awful compared to the one we end up with.

    > I simply don't like the fact that someone can change a
    > link that I submitted to something else

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_voting

Nothing would ever be changed for the better if people simply walked away from problems, rather than discussing them in an attempt to find a solution.

Your perspective is wrong.

The important thing is not that HN gets "better" according to your preferences (which appear to differ from those of the moderators), but that you have a community that more suits your preferences.

In a similar vein, you can complain as much as you like that company x's smartphone doesn't have the features you think are important, or, better, you can buy company y's smartphone that does.

so, instead of trying to make hn better, you suggest that whoever does not agree with something here should just silently walk away? if everyone acted like that what a happy society we would have been living in.

By "make hn better", you mean "make it different from how the originator and moderators want it to be".

Given that, yes, you should find a community whose leadership agree with your perspective.

Make our own HN! Quick someone register nothn.io!

Let's be honest, this website isn't a democracy or a republic or anything like that, even if there is "voting" on submissions and comments.

Average users really have no say while they're here. There's no real ability to control or even influence how this site is operated.

Leaving, or choosing not to actively participate any longer, probably does have the biggest impact of all of the options available to a user. Discussion forums need participants, and participants leaving over time can have a huge impact.

Slashdot is a good example of this. Various site owners/operators started changing things in ways that users did not like. Many users spoke out, but they were ignored. In many cases, they were subjected to downmodding, especially those who spoke out against bad UI changes or the recent beta site. Seeing that discussing the problems had no impact on the situation, they left. Now Slashdot is a wasteland compared to what it once was, a decade or so ago. The decline in participation may be gradual, but it's very real, and its impact is significant.

> Average users really have no say while they're here. There's no real ability to control or even influence how this site is operated.

I have to take issue with this. We change decisions all the time because of what users think, and I've left many records of that in the threads. HN moderation is really a collaboration between us and the community.

What HN isn't, is purely driven by votes. If it were, the front page would consist of outrage, gossip, and fashion. Those are the things that reliably get upvotes regardless of how substantive they are.

Reversing a bad moderation or operational decision when it's widely pointed out as having been a bad decision isn't what I consider giving the community any control or influence. That's merely fixing mistakes that probably shouldn't have been made to begin with, had real community involvement been in place.

What I mean, for example, is that while submissions and comments may be critiqued, there's pretty much no formal way for users in general here to critique that critiquing. The best that can be done is a submission like this one, which for whatever reason ended up off of the front page rather quickly. That's what I'm talking about.

Slashdot has its meta-moderation system, for example, which is somewhat useful and somewhat accessible. There's nothing even approaching that here, as far as I know.

> Now Slashdot is a wasteland compared to what it once was, a decade or so ago.

So it seems as if leaving slashdot did not really make it better. I'm not aware of a reincarnation that kept the good bits, either. So, to put a sharp point on it: just because blowing a city up has a "bigger impact" than being in it and complaining, doesn't necessarily make it the better option, if you know what I mean?

I think the exodus from Slashdot has been beneficial. It has shown that the various problems there are in fact severe enough to drive a large number of users away.

It may not be an ideal situation, of course, but it's better than the problems continuing to build under the surface, and users remaining miserable.

Now that the discontent is much more visible, there's at least some hope that real improvement may just happen there. That would not have been the case if people had remained, even if they were merely just vocal about their discontent, without acting upon it in some measurable way.

I would rather call it "censorship" and "impersonation" instead of "quality". Sorry, if you (dang or whoever) edit whatever I put there, just remove my name from there, so that people know who write the new content.

Agree. It wouldn't be hard for it have a little "originally" link/flag that pops up what was actually submitted prior to the mods fiddling with it. The attribution could also be changed from "username" to "modname via username", providing additional clarification about where it came from.

Every site has a duty to respect its users, especially when their content is the driving force of the site, this shouldn't be an optional thing at the whims of some "quality optimisation expert". Moderation should be about filtering the toxic users, not about getting in the way of the legitimate ones.

>One thing we're willing to trade away–if it's a clear win for quality–is fidelity to the original submission.

What worries me about this is how bias comes into play. For example, what if a mod thought a pro-Republican view on an issue had higher fidelity than a neutral view? Sure it might not always be that blatant or obvious, but this is an area I'd think twice about editing so the stories don't reflect what you think is ideal.

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