4 ms·

My own post was taken down before, so I'm pretty sure some form of censorship exists. I don't know if it's enforced by mods or implemented otherwise, but that's

by lgieron 11y ago

My own post was taken down before, so I'm pretty sure some form of censorship exists. I don't know if it's enforced by mods or implemented otherwise, but that's a minor point.

mod 11y ago
Posts can be flagged by users. If you were overtly offensive, I wouldn't be surprised.
- DrScump 11y ago
  there was a decidedly sexist article overnight (1AM-ish PST) which I (apparently among many others) flagged... and it was gone within a couple of minutes!
- lgieron 11y ago
  I wasn't offensive at all.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Whether you think your post was offensive and whether it actually was seen as offensive by other readers are, well, very different questions.
DanBC 11y ago
Don't say mods censor anti-YC stories if it's users who are doing it.
- lgieron 11y ago
  My post wasn't downvoted, but was visible only to me (no other user could see it). It looked like a scheme to kill my post without me realising it.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Was it a comment or a submission? Some domains are auto-killed. If you think it's worth posting you could email mods to ask them about it.
dang 11y ago
We go out of our way not to kill stories and comments that are critical of YC or YC-funded startups. When such posts break the HN guidelines, we may penalize them, but always less than we would if the story were about something else. That's a pretty big deal around here—it's literally the first rule of HN moderation. Beyond that, we'd need to know what post you're talking about. If you'd like to provide a link, we can look into it.
- 001sky 11y ago
  HN not only shadow bans commenters, they will also poison placement of comments (algorythmically) in a sub thread based on who writes the comment.
  - dang 11y ago
    We nearly always inform people when we ban their accounts: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20banned https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=.... Lots of software affects both story and comment rankings. "Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that. HN's goal is high quality in all things, to the extent it's possible. That doesn't just happen by default; systems are necessary, and it gets harder as numbers grow.
    - 001sky 11y ago
      "Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that NB...The words in my signature didn't come from a random sampling of the dictionary...they were from a screen grab of HN moderation tools... On the topic of changing subjects, no not really. Those words are outrageously inflamatory.
      - dang 11y ago
        Nobody found them inflammatory when they sat in the public HN source code for years, but once they appeared in an accidental screenshot, they became outrageous! We're happy to answer good-faith questions about HN moderation, but this seems like trying to stir up drama.

by lgieron 11y ago

My own post was taken down before, so I'm pretty sure some form of censorship exists. I don't know if it's enforced by mods or implemented otherwise, but that's a minor point.

mod 11y ago

Posts can be flagged by users. If you were overtly offensive, I wouldn't be surprised.

DrScump 11y ago
there was a decidedly sexist article overnight (1AM-ish PST) which I (apparently among many others) flagged... and it was gone within a couple of minutes!
lgieron 11y ago
I wasn't offensive at all.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Whether you think your post was offensive and whether it actually was seen as offensive by other readers are, well, very different questions.

DanBC 11y ago

Don't say mods censor anti-YC stories if it's users who are doing it.

lgieron 11y ago
My post wasn't downvoted, but was visible only to me (no other user could see it). It looked like a scheme to kill my post without me realising it.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Was it a comment or a submission? Some domains are auto-killed. If you think it's worth posting you could email mods to ask them about it.

dang 11y ago

We go out of our way not to kill stories and comments that are critical of YC or YC-funded startups. When such posts break the HN guidelines, we may penalize them, but always less than we would if the story were about something else. That's a pretty big deal around here—it's literally the first rule of HN moderation. Beyond that, we'd need to know what post you're talking about. If you'd like to provide a link, we can look into it.

001sky 11y ago
HN not only shadow bans commenters, they will also poison placement of comments (algorythmically) in a sub thread based on who writes the comment.
- dang 11y ago
  We nearly always inform people when we ban their accounts: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20banned https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=.... Lots of software affects both story and comment rankings. "Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that. HN's goal is high quality in all things, to the extent it's possible. That doesn't just happen by default; systems are necessary, and it gets harder as numbers grow.
  - 001sky 11y ago
    "Poison" is a rather tendentious way to describe that NB...The words in my signature didn't come from a random sampling of the dictionary...they were from a screen grab of HN moderation tools... On the topic of changing subjects, no not really. Those words are outrageously inflamatory.
    - dang 11y ago
      Nobody found them inflammatory when they sat in the public HN source code for years, but once they appeared in an accidental screenshot, they became outrageous! We're happy to answer good-faith questions about HN moderation, but this seems like trying to stir up drama.