7 ms·

Where is this documented? Not trying to be snippy - I have no idea what powers the moderators have in this realm. Maybe HN could benefit from some lobste.rs-esq

Where is this documented? Not trying to be snippy - I have no idea what powers the moderators have in this realm. Maybe HN could benefit from some lobste.rs-esque moderation transparency.

minimaxir 9y ago
dang made a full writeup here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 I agree it (along with other moderation behaviors described in the article) should be documented more explicitly in the guidelines/FAQ
- alexandercrohde 9y ago
  I think HN is factoring in that transparency can also be a weakness too. When google released its page-rank algorithm it became a target for manipulation and entire forums got wrecked (until nofollow) with the wave of consequences it created. I think the threat of user manipulation will always outweigh that of mod manipulation. Worth considering.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    There are layers to HN's transparency. Some policy is in the guidelines. Some policy is described in moderator comments, so if you want to keep up with it, you have to follow 'dang and 'sctb. Some policy is "public" but you'll only learn about it if you mail hn@yc and ask. Some policy won't be made public. There's no master plan behind it all, but each of these ways of handling policy has a purpose. Describing evolving policy in comments allows the moderators to be responsive and flexible without overrunning the site with metadiscussion like they would if every new decision they made was accompanied by a formal change in the guidelines. Relating policy in email discussion gives them a chance to explain it in context and to take feedback from the people most impacted or interested in that policy --- we all know votes on this site wouldn't generate that set of users. The stuff they don't make public is generally stuff we don't want made public. We forget that there are just a couple (I think literally) people running this site, and they're up against waves of people trying to create schemes to sell front page rank to spammers. They've got a sort of equilibrium that gives them a chance --- something Reddit seems to be failing at despite a much large team --- while still having the time to type out individualized contextualized explanations for all their routine moderating actions on threads (seriously, mods, figure out TextExpander or build something like it into your moderating tools).
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    I assumed they didn't want transparency as, eg, showing the stories HN self-promotes would be deleterious to that promotion. It strikes me it's always worth holding that this is a subdomain of YCombinator and presumably is used to further that corporation, its controllers ideals, and its associates interests over others who might seek influence here.
detaro 9y ago
The mods mentioned it a few times when they started doing it ("In case you wonder why this suddenly has a different timestamp/was resubmitted, ..."). AFAIR there have been variants, e. g. asking people to resubmit vs resetting the timestamp on an existing submission. It seems intentional that individual moderation tools are explained occasionally, but there is no up-to-date list of all of them.
- alekratz 9y ago
  It feels like they should have some kind of place where they lay out all of their powers, no? Mentioning it in a few threads or comments scattered across the site isn't exactly a useful way to disseminate this sort of information.
  - detaro 9y ago
    Maybe? I'm honestly not convinced it would change much. In the end a list of things mods could do will always be close to "we can adjust everything and ban everyone, trust us that we'll use it responsibly". There are things (e.g. changed titles) were I wish their specific action would be visible to avoid confusion (they often leave comments, but not always and they are easy to miss). That'd be more useful than a list entry somewhere "mods can change submission titles". People often don't seem to know about flags and vouch, these tools for users could be better explained somewhere. (Not that it will stop those crying "moderators censoring $thing!" every time a controversial topic is flagged)
sillysaurus3 9y ago
Even though HN is a community, the front page is essentially the mods' personal judgment. They are the editors, and HN is a newspaper. I like it this way. They have excellent taste. The community has repeatedly proven it cannot be trusted to upvote intellectually gratifying content. pg's original HN code contained a flag for "rally", meaning the story is a rallying cry, and is therefore penalized because it's so easy to mindlessly upvote it. The results speak for themselves: HN is now almost a top-1000 site by traffic. They had to be phenomenal. I don't think many people appreciate just how difficult this was to pull off, or how much they work their asses off every single day. If they ignored HN for even a week, it would deteriorate noticeably. Yet technology is at least as important. The fact that our upvotes do matter makes the situation unique -- although the mods can determine the relative weights of stories, we can still push a story upwards if enough of us are interested, and the story fits the site's original goal of gratifying intellectual curiosity. There is no company anywhere in the world like this. At this point, HN practically defines our culture. When news stories say things like "so-and-so story about <technology> has been making the rounds on social media," at least some of them are talking about HN now. And your coworkers probably hear about the tech they use at least partly from HN. The sole reason they're in this position is because they deserve to be. I hope they stay selective. As to being secretive, we should let them choose. If they want to reveal, fine. If not, fine. They've earned it. Even still, they've been remarkably transparent.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  HN's cool but it's just one forum among a million others. The moderation is good though sometimes arbitrary. That's a lot easier for users to accept when they know why they are getting positively/negatively moderated, which is a good reason for more openness. But at the end of the day it's a forum, the moderators have the final say, that's the contract you agree to in using it.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    If you don't like the way this site is edited, stand up an m1.large, hook Rails up to an sqlite database, and build your own. You'll be two generations of technology ahead of HN. The freedom to take other people's private belongings and repurpose them to your own ends is no real kind of freedom at all. But that's ultimately what you're yearning for when you allude to the Empire of Napoleon.

Where is this documented? Not trying to be snippy - I have no idea what powers the moderators have in this realm. Maybe HN could benefit from some lobste.rs-esque moderation transparency.

minimaxir 9y ago

dang made a full writeup here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 I agree it (along with other moderation behaviors described in the article) should be documented more explicitly in the guidelines/FAQ

alexandercrohde 9y ago
I think HN is factoring in that transparency can also be a weakness too. When google released its page-rank algorithm it became a target for manipulation and entire forums got wrecked (until nofollow) with the wave of consequences it created. I think the threat of user manipulation will always outweigh that of mod manipulation. Worth considering.
- tptacek 9y ago
  There are layers to HN's transparency. Some policy is in the guidelines. Some policy is described in moderator comments, so if you want to keep up with it, you have to follow 'dang and 'sctb. Some policy is "public" but you'll only learn about it if you mail hn@yc and ask. Some policy won't be made public. There's no master plan behind it all, but each of these ways of handling policy has a purpose. Describing evolving policy in comments allows the moderators to be responsive and flexible without overrunning the site with metadiscussion like they would if every new decision they made was accompanied by a formal change in the guidelines. Relating policy in email discussion gives them a chance to explain it in context and to take feedback from the people most impacted or interested in that policy --- we all know votes on this site wouldn't generate that set of users. The stuff they don't make public is generally stuff we don't want made public. We forget that there are just a couple (I think literally) people running this site, and they're up against waves of people trying to create schemes to sell front page rank to spammers. They've got a sort of equilibrium that gives them a chance --- something Reddit seems to be failing at despite a much large team --- while still having the time to type out individualized contextualized explanations for all their routine moderating actions on threads (seriously, mods, figure out TextExpander or build something like it into your moderating tools).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I assumed they didn't want transparency as, eg, showing the stories HN self-promotes would be deleterious to that promotion. It strikes me it's always worth holding that this is a subdomain of YCombinator and presumably is used to further that corporation, its controllers ideals, and its associates interests over others who might seek influence here.

detaro 9y ago

The mods mentioned it a few times when they started doing it ("In case you wonder why this suddenly has a different timestamp/was resubmitted, ..."). AFAIR there have been variants, e. g. asking people to resubmit vs resetting the timestamp on an existing submission. It seems intentional that individual moderation tools are explained occasionally, but there is no up-to-date list of all of them.

alekratz 9y ago
It feels like they should have some kind of place where they lay out all of their powers, no? Mentioning it in a few threads or comments scattered across the site isn't exactly a useful way to disseminate this sort of information.
- detaro 9y ago
  Maybe? I'm honestly not convinced it would change much. In the end a list of things mods could do will always be close to "we can adjust everything and ban everyone, trust us that we'll use it responsibly". There are things (e.g. changed titles) were I wish their specific action would be visible to avoid confusion (they often leave comments, but not always and they are easy to miss). That'd be more useful than a list entry somewhere "mods can change submission titles". People often don't seem to know about flags and vouch, these tools for users could be better explained somewhere. (Not that it will stop those crying "moderators censoring $thing!" every time a controversial topic is flagged)

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Even though HN is a community, the front page is essentially the mods' personal judgment. They are the editors, and HN is a newspaper. I like it this way. They have excellent taste. The community has repeatedly proven it cannot be trusted to upvote intellectually gratifying content. pg's original HN code contained a flag for "rally", meaning the story is a rallying cry, and is therefore penalized because it's so easy to mindlessly upvote it. The results speak for themselves: HN is now almost a top-1000 site by traffic. They had to be phenomenal. I don't think many people appreciate just how difficult this was to pull off, or how much they work their asses off every single day. If they ignored HN for even a week, it would deteriorate noticeably. Yet technology is at least as important. The fact that our upvotes do matter makes the situation unique -- although the mods can determine the relative weights of stories, we can still push a story upwards if enough of us are interested, and the story fits the site's original goal of gratifying intellectual curiosity. There is no company anywhere in the world like this. At this point, HN practically defines our culture. When news stories say things like "so-and-so story about <technology> has been making the rounds on social media," at least some of them are talking about HN now. And your coworkers probably hear about the tech they use at least partly from HN. The sole reason they're in this position is because they deserve to be. I hope they stay selective. As to being secretive, we should let them choose. If they want to reveal, fine. If not, fine. They've earned it. Even still, they've been remarkably transparent.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
HN's cool but it's just one forum among a million others. The moderation is good though sometimes arbitrary. That's a lot easier for users to accept when they know why they are getting positively/negatively moderated, which is a good reason for more openness. But at the end of the day it's a forum, the moderators have the final say, that's the contract you agree to in using it.
- tptacek 9y ago
  If you don't like the way this site is edited, stand up an m1.large, hook Rails up to an sqlite database, and build your own. You'll be two generations of technology ahead of HN. The freedom to take other people's private belongings and repurpose them to your own ends is no real kind of freedom at all. But that's ultimately what you're yearning for when you allude to the Empire of Napoleon.