15 ms·

In my opinion, far more than moderation, HN is effected by who votes for the new articles. If you look at the "new" page then most stories never even get one up

In my opinion, far more than moderation, HN is effected by who votes for the new articles. If you look at the "new" page then most stories never even get one upvote. Those who do go over there and upvote stories have far more power than those who only ever look at the front page. Sadly, it seems that there are too many stories on "new" for a person to sit there, read each one, and upvote, so the only real way to get a story on the front page is to get lucky or gang up with your friends.

rqs 9y ago
And also, I wonder what if some people just use proxies to register a bunch of HN accounts and use them to promote their items. It seems not very hard to register an HN account.
- yorwba 9y ago
  A bunch of new accounts, going via known proxy sites, all voting for the same item? There won't even be a human involved in the ban decision. If you don't have showdead on, you might not notice that many posts by new accounts are marked as dead immediately, and it's usually justified.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 9y ago
And as mentioned, people will definitely use the flag feature to get rid of controversial articles they don't like. Anything about sexism will get flagged into oblivion, for example.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Plenty of people who are deeply concerned about sexism in this industry also flag those stories, because it only takes 2-3 misogynist trolls to create a 300-comment shitshow out of them. There are still kinds of threads that this site simply can't do well, and it's better we not pretend we can until the guidelines and mod tools evolve to actually make them work here.
  - eropple 9y ago
    And, to underline, we have a lot more than 2-3 misogynist trolls in these parts. Reflexive rich-white-dude defensiveness is perhaps HN's greatest challenge.
    - astura 9y ago
      Hopefully they are just trolls, trolls just post comments that are inflammatory to get people riled up, not because they actually mean what they post. If they actually are misogynistic and think they their contributions are reasonable and welcome, that's a different problem.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      And you long for the day when it's your particular brand of racism and sexism that wins? Seriously, can you stop with the "white men are all racist and sexist and are priveleged so my racism and sexism towards them doesn't count", please. Do you not think your sort of attitude contributes heavily; that is, some people shouldn't be allowed to comment because of their race/sex.
      - KekDemaga 9y ago
        >And you long for the day when it's your particular brand of racism and sexism that wins? Beautifully put, the solution to sexism isn't more sexism.
        dang 9y ago
        We've banned this account for violating the HN guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Also, trollish usernames are trolling: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20username%20troll https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...
        Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
- NicoJuicy 9y ago
  Or politics ;)
- wglb 9y ago
  I flag stories whose thrust that I agree with but that are leading to toxic conversation. To me, HN value is the stories that are posted as well as the discussion. When the discussion gets out of hand, that is a detriment to the site.

rqs 9y ago

And also, I wonder what if some people just use proxies to register a bunch of HN accounts and use them to promote their items. It seems not very hard to register an HN account.

yorwba 9y ago
A bunch of new accounts, going via known proxy sites, all voting for the same item? There won't even be a human involved in the ban decision. If you don't have showdead on, you might not notice that many posts by new accounts are marked as dead immediately, and it's usually justified.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 9y ago

And as mentioned, people will definitely use the flag feature to get rid of controversial articles they don't like. Anything about sexism will get flagged into oblivion, for example.

tptacek 9y ago
Plenty of people who are deeply concerned about sexism in this industry also flag those stories, because it only takes 2-3 misogynist trolls to create a 300-comment shitshow out of them. There are still kinds of threads that this site simply can't do well, and it's better we not pretend we can until the guidelines and mod tools evolve to actually make them work here.
- eropple 9y ago
  And, to underline, we have a lot more than 2-3 misogynist trolls in these parts. Reflexive rich-white-dude defensiveness is perhaps HN's greatest challenge.
  - astura 9y ago
    Hopefully they are just trolls, trolls just post comments that are inflammatory to get people riled up, not because they actually mean what they post. If they actually are misogynistic and think they their contributions are reasonable and welcome, that's a different problem.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    And you long for the day when it's your particular brand of racism and sexism that wins? Seriously, can you stop with the "white men are all racist and sexist and are priveleged so my racism and sexism towards them doesn't count", please. Do you not think your sort of attitude contributes heavily; that is, some people shouldn't be allowed to comment because of their race/sex.
    - KekDemaga 9y ago
      >And you long for the day when it's your particular brand of racism and sexism that wins? Beautifully put, the solution to sexism isn't more sexism.
      - dang 9y ago
        We've banned this account for violating the HN guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Also, trollish usernames are trolling: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20username%20troll https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...
        Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
NicoJuicy 9y ago
Or politics ;)
wglb 9y ago
I flag stories whose thrust that I agree with but that are leading to toxic conversation. To me, HN value is the stories that are posted as well as the discussion. When the discussion gets out of hand, that is a detriment to the site.