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Yeah, I think its a bit of sly trick from HN admins - they get to plausibly deny suppressing hot button topics because their intervention is to white-list discu

Yeah, I think its a bit of sly trick from HN admins - they get to plausibly deny suppressing hot button topics because their intervention is to white-list discussion instead of having to be up front and make the tough decision to black-list them. When a negative story about YC emerges and generates a lot of comments so it gets pushed off the front-page and they just say "shame but its just automatic flamewar detector, <shrug>". I'm sure they think they are clever but it just erodes trust over the long term.

RyanZAG 10y ago
Ah right, that makes a lot of sense. I was probably just being naive there. Probably best to discuss YC related topics on different forums.
sctb 10y ago
The reason we didn't turn off the flamewar detector, and how that relates to moderation of YC-related stories, is explained here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027515 and further here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028145. Trust me, there's no room for feeling clever in this job.
- duncanawoods 10y ago
  Hah :) What do you think about leaving the penalties open for user customisation? I find its more miss than hit as a flamewar heuristic and would prefer to scroll past real flamewars rather than know that popular topics are suppressed.
  - dang 10y ago
    Just look at https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active (via https://news.ycombinator.com/lists https://news.ycombinator.com/lists, linked at the bottom of each page). It's literally the first rule of HN moderation that we don't suppress stories that are negative about YC or YC startups. More precisely, when stories like that appear, we moderate them less than we usually would. The reason is precisely what you said: long term trust is the most important thing. Also, before being moderators of HN, we're users ourselves, and wouldn't want the site to be moderated that way.

RyanZAG 10y ago

Ah right, that makes a lot of sense. I was probably just being naive there. Probably best to discuss YC related topics on different forums.

sctb 10y ago

The reason we didn't turn off the flamewar detector, and how that relates to moderation of YC-related stories, is explained here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027515 and further here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028145. Trust me, there's no room for feeling clever in this job.

duncanawoods 10y ago
Hah :) What do you think about leaving the penalties open for user customisation? I find its more miss than hit as a flamewar heuristic and would prefer to scroll past real flamewars rather than know that popular topics are suppressed.
- dang 10y ago
  Just look at https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active (via https://news.ycombinator.com/lists https://news.ycombinator.com/lists, linked at the bottom of each page). It's literally the first rule of HN moderation that we don't suppress stories that are negative about YC or YC startups. More precisely, when stories like that appear, we moderate them less than we usually would. The reason is precisely what you said: long term trust is the most important thing. Also, before being moderators of HN, we're users ourselves, and wouldn't want the site to be moderated that way.