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As duncanawoods says, that seems far too convenient. Is there some list available of which discussions have had the 'overheated discussion detector' turned off

by RyanZAG 10y ago

As duncanawoods says, that seems far too convenient. Is there some list available of which discussions have had the 'overheated discussion detector' turned off on them? Then we could see the number of PRO-YC vs ANTI-YC articles and see if a bias does in fact exist.

dang 10y ago
I don't see that that would make HN better. Do you think anything will stop people from accusing HN moderation of bias? That's not how it works. They will accuse us of that no matter what we do and no matter what the truth is. Publishing more material about moderation would do nothing to reduce this; it would likely just feed it. When people see something they don't like, they don't think, "Well, any even-handed system will put up things I don't like sometimes." They think: Bias! Outrage! And some will rush to post "J'accuse!". Consider that in any large group this will happen to a few people every day (sometimes the same few!), and consider that it takes 100x as much effort to responsibly respond to the j'accuses as to fire them off in the first place. To feed that would be to power a DoS attack on all the resources that could otherwise make HN better. Therefore our goal should not be the impossible one of placating everybody with a litigious bee in their bonnet, but (a) being able to say "no, we don't do that" in good conscience, and (b) retaining the good will of the community as a whole. Actually we like to help users with bees in their bonnets too, but to think it can always be done leads to madness. We're toying with adding vouch links so users can vouch for a story they don't think should be marked as a flamewar. That's something that might improve the quality of HN.
- RyanZAG 10y ago
  I like that vouch goal, sounds great! Makes sense about releasing more stats - how about internally then? Could you take a look at the number of pro- and anti-YC stories that you've turned the system off for and see if it seems unbiased? Often it's easy to judge each story one by one and think you're being unbiased. But we're all biased. Going back and checking those stats may reveal something you didn't think was happening. Or not. Not as any kind of placation, but more as an internal quality check so you know you're on the right track.
  - dang 10y ago
    That sounds like a good idea in principle. I'd be surprised if our perceptions were seriously off, because it literally is the first rule of HN moderation and something we practice consciously nearly every day, but you're right that we're not immune, any more than anybody else is.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Vouch already exists and has existed for awhile. I don't know why dang assumes so much about other's motives and future actions, but the account makes such allegations on the regular. The censorship and narrative feeding is very real here.

by RyanZAG 10y ago

dang 10y ago

I don't see that that would make HN better. Do you think anything will stop people from accusing HN moderation of bias? That's not how it works. They will accuse us of that no matter what we do and no matter what the truth is. Publishing more material about moderation would do nothing to reduce this; it would likely just feed it. When people see something they don't like, they don't think, "Well, any even-handed system will put up things I don't like sometimes." They think: Bias! Outrage! And some will rush to post "J'accuse!". Consider that in any large group this will happen to a few people every day (sometimes the same few!), and consider that it takes 100x as much effort to responsibly respond to the j'accuses as to fire them off in the first place. To feed that would be to power a DoS attack on all the resources that could otherwise make HN better. Therefore our goal should not be the impossible one of placating everybody with a litigious bee in their bonnet, but (a) being able to say "no, we don't do that" in good conscience, and (b) retaining the good will of the community as a whole. Actually we like to help users with bees in their bonnets too, but to think it can always be done leads to madness. We're toying with adding vouch links so users can vouch for a story they don't think should be marked as a flamewar. That's something that might improve the quality of HN.

RyanZAG 10y ago
I like that vouch goal, sounds great! Makes sense about releasing more stats - how about internally then? Could you take a look at the number of pro- and anti-YC stories that you've turned the system off for and see if it seems unbiased? Often it's easy to judge each story one by one and think you're being unbiased. But we're all biased. Going back and checking those stats may reveal something you didn't think was happening. Or not. Not as any kind of placation, but more as an internal quality check so you know you're on the right track.
- dang 10y ago
  That sounds like a good idea in principle. I'd be surprised if our perceptions were seriously off, because it literally is the first rule of HN moderation and something we practice consciously nearly every day, but you're right that we're not immune, any more than anybody else is.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Vouch already exists and has existed for awhile. I don't know why dang assumes so much about other's motives and future actions, but the account makes such allegations on the regular. The censorship and narrative feeding is very real here.