4 ms·

Wow that's quite interesting. I've never gotten one if those so I don't know if it's new or I just never post anything interesting?!

striking 11y ago
HN mods have had this tool at their disposal for quite a while, but they've used it rarely until now. Source: I got one of these for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9083672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9083672 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086223
- bootload 11y ago
  "HN mods have had this tool at their disposal for quite a while, but they've used it rarely until now." Not as rarely as you think.
dang 11y ago
We've only recently built software support for this. Before that we did it manually for several months to test the idea. More on this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10395389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10395389 and the links from there.
- arama471 11y ago
  As cool as it is you guys are giving good stories a better chance of hitting the front page. I can't help but wonder: 1. How a post is determined to be "good"? - Is it just if any of the moderators like it? - Is there a voting system for mods to determine this? - Would these not require a lot more work for the mods for possibly little benefit? 2. How do you ensure that feature isn't abused by a "bad" mod to promote their own content or views?
  - striking 11y ago
    In the linked comment, dang writes: >> We use a combination of software filters and human review to find good-but-overlooked stories. "Good" here means by HN's definition of "gratifying intellectual curiosity". Hopefully that answers your first point. Second, HN mods are hired to work full-time on improving and polishing HN. This requires that they be professional, and professionalism in this sense requires ignoring your personal views. Having any kind of motive not based on improving HN would be unprofessional. This is a way in which HN is distinguished from Reddit: YC puts money into guaranteeing that HN works well. Only well-known people can be mods, not everyone on the Internet. These people have reputations for being "good," being fair and impartial. Mods have something at stake (jobs, reputation). So does YC. They're not going to make a mistake. And in my experience, (although I realize that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data") dang et al. have been nothing but totally neutral in every action (that I've seen, so far) on HN.
    - l33tbro 11y ago
      Just curious if you guys have also tried seeing what happens when you run the meritocracy approach to articles? Ie, let the upvotes decide. I think most of the inmates here would be surprised that they're not running the asylum :)
      - striking 11y ago
        The upvotes do decide here, though. Mods rarely manually pull posts that aren't spam. Most are flagged by users, which either kills them or pushes them into the bottom of the rankings. And at least HN is clear about where the moderators stand. Meritocracy doesn't function. Either you have reddit, where users circlejerk into oblivion in smaller communities because votes don't matter (and larger communities don't work either, because their bigger mod teams do things like [1,2,3]) or you have StackOverflow, where upvotes and downvotes are extremely powerful and either allow you a lot of power or allow you to zap others and keep them in line. HN allows you to easily amass some karma so you can say something that isn't in line with others' opinions. Sometimes people will even upvote you and make your minority opinion prominent. Downvoting requires at least 500 karma, making sure you have the lay of the land down (and prevents spam accounts from taking down comments immediately). HN has a lot of transparency. Try enabling "showdead" in your profile. Forget uneddit, that's built in on HN. We're not inmates. We're here for the conversation. We like cool stuff and we like to talk about it. [1]: https://archive.is/CFKgq https://archive.is/CFKgq [2]: https://i.imgur.com/EWVH9RW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/EWVH9RW.jpg [3]: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3hewwm/misc_i_was_banned_from_roffmychest_for_submitting/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3hewwm/misc...

striking 11y ago

HN mods have had this tool at their disposal for quite a while, but they've used it rarely until now. Source: I got one of these for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9083672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9083672 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9086223

bootload 11y ago
"HN mods have had this tool at their disposal for quite a while, but they've used it rarely until now." Not as rarely as you think.

dang 11y ago

We've only recently built software support for this. Before that we did it manually for several months to test the idea. More on this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10395389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10395389 and the links from there.

arama471 11y ago
As cool as it is you guys are giving good stories a better chance of hitting the front page. I can't help but wonder: 1. How a post is determined to be "good"? - Is it just if any of the moderators like it? - Is there a voting system for mods to determine this? - Would these not require a lot more work for the mods for possibly little benefit? 2. How do you ensure that feature isn't abused by a "bad" mod to promote their own content or views?
- striking 11y ago
  In the linked comment, dang writes: >> We use a combination of software filters and human review to find good-but-overlooked stories. "Good" here means by HN's definition of "gratifying intellectual curiosity". Hopefully that answers your first point. Second, HN mods are hired to work full-time on improving and polishing HN. This requires that they be professional, and professionalism in this sense requires ignoring your personal views. Having any kind of motive not based on improving HN would be unprofessional. This is a way in which HN is distinguished from Reddit: YC puts money into guaranteeing that HN works well. Only well-known people can be mods, not everyone on the Internet. These people have reputations for being "good," being fair and impartial. Mods have something at stake (jobs, reputation). So does YC. They're not going to make a mistake. And in my experience, (although I realize that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data") dang et al. have been nothing but totally neutral in every action (that I've seen, so far) on HN.
  - l33tbro 11y ago
    Just curious if you guys have also tried seeing what happens when you run the meritocracy approach to articles? Ie, let the upvotes decide. I think most of the inmates here would be surprised that they're not running the asylum :)
    - striking 11y ago
      The upvotes do decide here, though. Mods rarely manually pull posts that aren't spam. Most are flagged by users, which either kills them or pushes them into the bottom of the rankings. And at least HN is clear about where the moderators stand. Meritocracy doesn't function. Either you have reddit, where users circlejerk into oblivion in smaller communities because votes don't matter (and larger communities don't work either, because their bigger mod teams do things like [1,2,3]) or you have StackOverflow, where upvotes and downvotes are extremely powerful and either allow you a lot of power or allow you to zap others and keep them in line. HN allows you to easily amass some karma so you can say something that isn't in line with others' opinions. Sometimes people will even upvote you and make your minority opinion prominent. Downvoting requires at least 500 karma, making sure you have the lay of the land down (and prevents spam accounts from taking down comments immediately). HN has a lot of transparency. Try enabling "showdead" in your profile. Forget uneddit, that's built in on HN. We're not inmates. We're here for the conversation. We like cool stuff and we like to talk about it. [1]: https://archive.is/CFKgq https://archive.is/CFKgq [2]: https://i.imgur.com/EWVH9RW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/EWVH9RW.jpg [3]: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3hewwm/misc_i_was_banned_from_roffmychest_for_submitting/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3hewwm/misc...