6 ms·

Let this be a lesson to others, the more censorship and the more draconic your allowed speech rules are, the worse you're off. The quality of overall discussion

by nukeop 9y ago

Let this be a lesson to others, the more censorship and the more draconic your allowed speech rules are, the worse you're off. The quality of overall discussion is negatively correlated with the amount of censorship.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
danso 9y ago
HN is the most moderated platform I currently use, but despite its rules and frequent mod intervention, it seems to have a higher overall quality of discussion compared to what I can find on Reddit or Twitter.
- exelius 9y ago
  There is definitely a hive mind that is reinforced by the mods here. Reddit is far worse, but realize that Ycombinator has certain goals as an organization and if your comments stray into direct opposition, they will delete things. I don’t think this is an indictment of HN, just highlighting that there is an implicit bias in every discussion forum. Discussion is of high quality as long as it remains aligned, which is true 99% of the time.
  - slantyyz 9y ago
    > Reddit is far worse, I would re-characterize it as "some Reddit subreddits are far worse" - because your experience can vary widely. All the subreddits I subscribe to (hobby and interest related, not news/politics) are actually self-policed very well. I tend to think the toxic subreddits are actually in the minority even though they get all the attention.
    - nukeop 9y ago
      Reddit is far worse in reinforcing subconscious self-moderation to adhere to the majority opinion. It's present on Hacker News too, since most people use the downvote as a "I disagree" button.
      - slantyyz 9y ago
        I think it depends on the subreddit. The ones I subscribe to aren't that bad with respect to downvotes.
    - danso 9y ago
      I also like the subreddits I subscribe to, and the volunteer mods generally do a great job. But I do think that HN mods (who are paid, I assume) have a more difficult job in content filtering, in that HN is ostensibly a general discussion forum. Even as it skews towards tech and startups, just about every topic is eligible for discussion, including political debate. In r/netsec, for example, submitted links and discussions are generally good, but the mods are also very strict about the content -- technical posts, only. I suspect the quality of discussion would change drastically if they allowed anything remotely political or even just non-technical, such as various Troy Hunt posts [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16636453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16636453
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- slantyyz 9y ago
  >> HN is the most moderated platform I currently use, but despite its rules and frequent mod intervention, it seems to have a higher overall quality of discussion compared to what I can find on Reddit or Twitter. I find Reddit to be pretty good in general. All the subreddits I subscribe to (none are political or hot topics, they're all around my hobbies and interests, etc) are pretty civil. I am sure there are toxic subreddits, but my Reddit feed is higher quality than my Facebook feed by a mile, and the discussions might have a few corny jokes, but they're generally fine.
- nukeop 9y ago
  Reddit is a marketing platform, not a discussion platform. If a website has tools like shadowbanning and rules that govern the allowed range of opinions that read like something you'd need a law degree to understand, you're on a platform that serves only advertisers and is only useful for promotion and marketing, not discussion.
  - deadmetheny 9y ago
    Kind of like HN?
Deestan 9y ago
On the contrary, disallowing low-effort garbage to drown out all attempts at discourse is a type of censorship that makes room for quality discussion. Abstracting all communication as "speech" and therefore "free speech" and therefore "censorship" means not differentiating between discussing local traffic policy with a group of informed people, and having everyone listen to the loud smelly drunk who sat down at your table to tell jokes about negroes.
- neolefty 9y ago
  Yes, I'd say that free speech—like many things—gets harder with scale. When a small number of trolls can derail a conversation, you get denial-of-service attacks against civil discourse and democracy. > having everyone listen to the loud smelly drunk who sat down at your table to tell jokes about negroes For example, the article talks about a mismatch between moderation tools and trolling: > Internally, Costolo complained that the “abuse economics” were “backward.” It took just seconds to create an account to harass someone, but reporting that abuse required filling out a time-consuming form.
- nukeop 9y ago
  Once you start perceiving people whose opinions you don't like as "loud smelly drunks" you're already too far down the rabbit hole to understand the importance of keeping moderation to the absolute minimum (which means keeping out spammers, illegal content and people behaving destructively towards the platform only). The best forums I've ever been on were those where there were no ratings whatsoever, a linear structure of discussion, and that allowed any range of opinions as long as they were not in the aforementioned groups.
stevenwoo 9y ago
Can you elucidate how you come to that conclusion from this article?

by nukeop 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

danso 9y ago

HN is the most moderated platform I currently use, but despite its rules and frequent mod intervention, it seems to have a higher overall quality of discussion compared to what I can find on Reddit or Twitter.

exelius 9y ago
There is definitely a hive mind that is reinforced by the mods here. Reddit is far worse, but realize that Ycombinator has certain goals as an organization and if your comments stray into direct opposition, they will delete things. I don’t think this is an indictment of HN, just highlighting that there is an implicit bias in every discussion forum. Discussion is of high quality as long as it remains aligned, which is true 99% of the time.
- slantyyz 9y ago
  > Reddit is far worse, I would re-characterize it as "some Reddit subreddits are far worse" - because your experience can vary widely. All the subreddits I subscribe to (hobby and interest related, not news/politics) are actually self-policed very well. I tend to think the toxic subreddits are actually in the minority even though they get all the attention.
  - nukeop 9y ago
    Reddit is far worse in reinforcing subconscious self-moderation to adhere to the majority opinion. It's present on Hacker News too, since most people use the downvote as a "I disagree" button.
    - slantyyz 9y ago
      I think it depends on the subreddit. The ones I subscribe to aren't that bad with respect to downvotes.
  - danso 9y ago
    I also like the subreddits I subscribe to, and the volunteer mods generally do a great job. But I do think that HN mods (who are paid, I assume) have a more difficult job in content filtering, in that HN is ostensibly a general discussion forum. Even as it skews towards tech and startups, just about every topic is eligible for discussion, including political debate. In r/netsec, for example, submitted links and discussions are generally good, but the mods are also very strict about the content -- technical posts, only. I suspect the quality of discussion would change drastically if they allowed anything remotely political or even just non-technical, such as various Troy Hunt posts [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16636453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16636453
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
slantyyz 9y ago
>> HN is the most moderated platform I currently use, but despite its rules and frequent mod intervention, it seems to have a higher overall quality of discussion compared to what I can find on Reddit or Twitter. I find Reddit to be pretty good in general. All the subreddits I subscribe to (none are political or hot topics, they're all around my hobbies and interests, etc) are pretty civil. I am sure there are toxic subreddits, but my Reddit feed is higher quality than my Facebook feed by a mile, and the discussions might have a few corny jokes, but they're generally fine.
nukeop 9y ago
Reddit is a marketing platform, not a discussion platform. If a website has tools like shadowbanning and rules that govern the allowed range of opinions that read like something you'd need a law degree to understand, you're on a platform that serves only advertisers and is only useful for promotion and marketing, not discussion.
- deadmetheny 9y ago
  Kind of like HN?

Deestan 9y ago

On the contrary, disallowing low-effort garbage to drown out all attempts at discourse is a type of censorship that makes room for quality discussion. Abstracting all communication as "speech" and therefore "free speech" and therefore "censorship" means not differentiating between discussing local traffic policy with a group of informed people, and having everyone listen to the loud smelly drunk who sat down at your table to tell jokes about negroes.

neolefty 9y ago
Yes, I'd say that free speech—like many things—gets harder with scale. When a small number of trolls can derail a conversation, you get denial-of-service attacks against civil discourse and democracy. > having everyone listen to the loud smelly drunk who sat down at your table to tell jokes about negroes For example, the article talks about a mismatch between moderation tools and trolling: > Internally, Costolo complained that the “abuse economics” were “backward.” It took just seconds to create an account to harass someone, but reporting that abuse required filling out a time-consuming form.
nukeop 9y ago
Once you start perceiving people whose opinions you don't like as "loud smelly drunks" you're already too far down the rabbit hole to understand the importance of keeping moderation to the absolute minimum (which means keeping out spammers, illegal content and people behaving destructively towards the platform only). The best forums I've ever been on were those where there were no ratings whatsoever, a linear structure of discussion, and that allowed any range of opinions as long as they were not in the aforementioned groups.

stevenwoo 9y ago

Can you elucidate how you come to that conclusion from this article?