5 ms·

Could you really trust the white supremacist to correctly ID the material, though?

DoreenMichele 9y ago
That depends on a lot of factors. Some people are into porn. That doesn't mean they want porn everywhere all the time on all sites they frequent. This is why we use NSFW warnings on sites like HN: People here are not necessarily averse to viewing and discussing sexually explicit material, but they want to make sure they aren't fired for doing so if they are on their break at work while reading HN.
- dang 9y ago
  That's an interesting observation. There are excellent HN users who are trolls elsewhere. They just respect the rules here, because they understand the intention behind them and want HN to actually be the kind of site you get when the game has those rules. After encountering a few such users, I got more interested in explaining the intention behind the site: that it isn't about being nice or virtuous so much as having a place that isn't boring, and that this only works if everyone carries their share of responsibility for not torching it.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Metafilter was the absolute worst social experience of my life. When I joined, it was common for individuals who did not fit in for some reason to be routinely ganged up on by other people. Mods would ask the person being ganged up on to stop posting, then let other people continue to make personal attacks against the person who had been asked to leave the conversation, who could now not defend themselves. If they did come back into the conversation to defend themselves, they were "behaving badly" for disobeying mod instruction (but the people attacking them were never told they were behaving badly). As someone who was openly homeless at the time that I was gifted a Metafilter membership (by someone on HN), I ended up on the receiving end of that on Metafilter. At some point, I stopped participating. It is clear to me that both Hacker News and Metafilter have a high percentage of well educated, well heeled members. In fact, there is significant overlap between the membership of Hacker News and of Metafilter. Some active users of both sites have the same handle on both sites. I fairly often see remarks on HN by well-to-do people that strike me as sort of clueless wrt how the other half lives. But I have not been openly, actively and repeatedly ganged up on and continuously harassed here the way I was on Metafilter. Given the similarities of the populations and the actual overlap of membership, in recent months I have been forced to conclude that the difference in culture is due to a difference in moderation. So, you do good work and should be proud of that.
    - pmoriarty 9y ago
      "Given the similarities of the populations and the actual overlap of membership, in recent months I have been forced to conclude that the difference in culture is due to a difference in moderation. So, you do good work and should be proud of that." Although the moderators certainly deserve credit for contributing to a civil atmosphere on HN, the users have a lot to do with it too. There's a lot of self-policing, as it were, going on here, with users who already buy in to HN's constructive comment ethic downvoting and calling out posts that go against that. That takes more than mere intelligence or education, but a willingness to adhere to commonly-shared norms of what's good for the site -- in HN's case it's constructive, helpful comments.
      - dang 9y ago
        Couldn't agree more.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        There's a lot of self-policing The crux of my point is that I was really puzzled for a long time as to how on earth I could interact in two forums with some of the same members and people who are openly, persistently and consistently ugly to me in one successfully self police in the other and refrain from harassing me. That blew my mind for the longest time. It made no sense at all. I eventually concluded that a difference in moderation must be the difference that makes a difference. Perhaps that should have been said privately. I am not prone to flattery. That isn't the point of saying it here. The point is that it is a clear example that demonstrates the power of moderation. As someone who has done some moderating myself, it is an intriguing contrast.
    - 1123581321 9y ago
      I completely agree with your assessment of Metafilter. The recent decision there to curtail the histrionic behavior in the political threads was a good step, but it’s probably not possible for them to restore the quality and quantity of comments now as too many good users have given up trying to contribute rather than face constant attacks from the same 50 or so users.
mc32 9y ago
That was back in the mid '00s. Nowadays lots of that is outsourced to low wage labor places like PH. plus, it does not say, but in that example, that person could have been an "ex-" whatever. So they were once an insider, since denounced and now provide insight to evaluate. But again, it's beside the point, lots of moderation gets outsourced --sometimes there is communication breakdown between the off-shore location and stateside management and their guidelines. Often times these misunderstandings result in some content getting falsely moderated away and then restored after an outcry.
duskwuff 9y ago
Certainly. Their experience would allow them to recognize a lot of covert signals ("dog whistles") which would not be obvious to other viewers. The same goes for pornography. There's a lot of weird porn which gets away with being on sites like YouTube because it's too esoteric to be recognizable by most reviewers. For example [NSFW but not explicit]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWW8_8fc0-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWW8_8fc0-E -- there isn't any exposed genitals or sexual activity in the video, but it's clearly made to arouse people with the right fetish. (Just look at the comments if it isn't obvious.) A reviewer who's familiar with "weird porn" would likely be much better at recognizing fetish material, even if it's a fetish they don't personally enjoy.

That depends on a lot of factors. Some people are into porn. That doesn't mean they want porn everywhere all the time on all sites they frequent. This is why we use NSFW warnings on sites like HN: People here are not necessarily averse to viewing and discussing sexually explicit material, but they want to make sure they aren't fired for doing so if they are on their break at work while reading HN.

dang 9y ago
That's an interesting observation. There are excellent HN users who are trolls elsewhere. They just respect the rules here, because they understand the intention behind them and want HN to actually be the kind of site you get when the game has those rules. After encountering a few such users, I got more interested in explaining the intention behind the site: that it isn't about being nice or virtuous so much as having a place that isn't boring, and that this only works if everyone carries their share of responsibility for not torching it.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Metafilter was the absolute worst social experience of my life. When I joined, it was common for individuals who did not fit in for some reason to be routinely ganged up on by other people. Mods would ask the person being ganged up on to stop posting, then let other people continue to make personal attacks against the person who had been asked to leave the conversation, who could now not defend themselves. If they did come back into the conversation to defend themselves, they were "behaving badly" for disobeying mod instruction (but the people attacking them were never told they were behaving badly). As someone who was openly homeless at the time that I was gifted a Metafilter membership (by someone on HN), I ended up on the receiving end of that on Metafilter. At some point, I stopped participating. It is clear to me that both Hacker News and Metafilter have a high percentage of well educated, well heeled members. In fact, there is significant overlap between the membership of Hacker News and of Metafilter. Some active users of both sites have the same handle on both sites. I fairly often see remarks on HN by well-to-do people that strike me as sort of clueless wrt how the other half lives. But I have not been openly, actively and repeatedly ganged up on and continuously harassed here the way I was on Metafilter. Given the similarities of the populations and the actual overlap of membership, in recent months I have been forced to conclude that the difference in culture is due to a difference in moderation. So, you do good work and should be proud of that.
  - pmoriarty 9y ago
    "Given the similarities of the populations and the actual overlap of membership, in recent months I have been forced to conclude that the difference in culture is due to a difference in moderation. So, you do good work and should be proud of that." Although the moderators certainly deserve credit for contributing to a civil atmosphere on HN, the users have a lot to do with it too. There's a lot of self-policing, as it were, going on here, with users who already buy in to HN's constructive comment ethic downvoting and calling out posts that go against that. That takes more than mere intelligence or education, but a willingness to adhere to commonly-shared norms of what's good for the site -- in HN's case it's constructive, helpful comments.
    - dang 9y ago
      Couldn't agree more.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      There's a lot of self-policing The crux of my point is that I was really puzzled for a long time as to how on earth I could interact in two forums with some of the same members and people who are openly, persistently and consistently ugly to me in one successfully self police in the other and refrain from harassing me. That blew my mind for the longest time. It made no sense at all. I eventually concluded that a difference in moderation must be the difference that makes a difference. Perhaps that should have been said privately. I am not prone to flattery. That isn't the point of saying it here. The point is that it is a clear example that demonstrates the power of moderation. As someone who has done some moderating myself, it is an intriguing contrast.
  - 1123581321 9y ago
    I completely agree with your assessment of Metafilter. The recent decision there to curtail the histrionic behavior in the political threads was a good step, but it’s probably not possible for them to restore the quality and quantity of comments now as too many good users have given up trying to contribute rather than face constant attacks from the same 50 or so users.

mc32 9y ago

That was back in the mid '00s. Nowadays lots of that is outsourced to low wage labor places like PH. plus, it does not say, but in that example, that person could have been an "ex-" whatever. So they were once an insider, since denounced and now provide insight to evaluate. But again, it's beside the point, lots of moderation gets outsourced --sometimes there is communication breakdown between the off-shore location and stateside management and their guidelines. Often times these misunderstandings result in some content getting falsely moderated away and then restored after an outcry.

duskwuff 9y ago

Certainly. Their experience would allow them to recognize a lot of covert signals ("dog whistles") which would not be obvious to other viewers. The same goes for pornography. There's a lot of weird porn which gets away with being on sites like YouTube because it's too esoteric to be recognizable by most reviewers. For example [NSFW but not explicit]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWW8_8fc0-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWW8_8fc0-E -- there isn't any exposed genitals or sexual activity in the video, but it's clearly made to arouse people with the right fetish. (Just look at the comments if it isn't obvious.) A reviewer who's familiar with "weird porn" would likely be much better at recognizing fetish material, even if it's a fetish they don't personally enjoy.