5 ms·

Ratings already take care of curating. Why do you need assholes to curate?

by pishpash 9y ago

Ajedi32 9y ago
Same reason why HN has both up/down votes, and actual moderators.
- singularity2001 9y ago
  And the reason is ... ? What's wrong with comments just being grayed out, collapsed and moved to the bottom if they are downvoted for being (too) stupid / trolling / fascist etc? Moderators could just have more voting power.
  - singularity2001 9y ago
    OK reading the Medium post [0] I see that toxic comments were the starting points here, not the rampant practice of closing questions for dubious reasons. [0] https://medium.com/@Aprilw/suffering-on-stack-overflow-c46414a34a52 https://medium.com/@Aprilw/suffering-on-stack-overflow-c4641...
    - shagie 9y ago
      I believe that these comments exist when the other tools of moderation of that content have run out and the individuals are using the social moderation tools of comments (that are nearly unlimited) to do that moderation. I further believe that this rudeness could be reduced by improving the encoded moderation tools (votes, close, delete) so that such questionsget up front mentoring or guidance on how to search for the material before they are posted. It should also be noted that the author of the post has a consulting service for improving diversity in the workplace (second paragraph) - there is a promotional aspect to this post. Stack Overflow, as a very central and large place that people perceive as being jerks is an easy and large target to push against. It is also interesting that while this is being held up as an example (from the post): > I used vivid imagery, sure, but you’ll notice that in all my criticism of Stack Overflow, I avoid name-calling, personal attacks, and profanity. For the record, I do not endorse any criticism of Stack Overflow that resorts to these tactics, though I do feel compassion for the pain that leads to this kind of response. that posts on HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16936221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16936221 ) are not being held up to the same standard of avoiding name calling, personal attacks and profanity.
  - your-nanny 9y ago
    My guess is that your being grayed out us a response to your question. Either in cheek or earnest.
- corobo 9y ago
  > HN has both up/down votes This separates the good from the bad > and actual moderators This stops the trolling and spammy pump and dump comments/posts It works pretty well. I've never felt unwelcome on HN, even when something I've posted gets downvoted. I come away with a more "ehhh, yeah I get it" feel rather than anything resembling the bitterness I feel whenever StackOverflow is the only option in search results. Give people powers based on how much they use a site and they'll just start pushing people out of the site. It happened a lot back in the day in IRC, happens all over Wikipedia, happens all over StackOverflow. There's a pattern.
  - zaarn 9y ago
    As you have correctly observed, people will start pushing out other people from the site. But who is doing the pushing? On HN, there is a very heavy liberal and left-leaning bias in this pushing (not accusing, this is imply observational data), Reddit is more of a mixed bag for example with some places having a much more strong push from the right and conservatives. People on HN would likely not feel welcome there. If you give power to the people you ultimately end up having a site that reflects how the majority of it's users think. If that is good or bad is another discussion. The mechanisms of a downvote play heavily into this too. Downvotes on HN are rare and only enabled for the elite (+500 karma elite to be specific, this is the exact 'give people power based on how much they use the site'), IIRC SO has a similar policy for some actions, not sure on downvotes. I don't think that is inherently bad, people who are long-time contributors to a community should usually have a better idea on how to improve it than a newcomer. The crucial point might be that on HN there is a limit of power you can achieve. After you get your downvotes, that's it. It only filters out young and inactive (or controversial) accounts but not people who engage in the community. SO might benefit from implementing a similar power ceiling to HN, so that users can't abuse their amount of reputation over others.
stuartd 9y ago
To reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. Disclaimer: apparently I'm an asshole Edit: not moderator

Ratings already take care of curating. Why do you need assholes to curate?

Ajedi32 9y ago

Same reason why HN has both up/down votes, and actual moderators.

singularity2001 9y ago
And the reason is ... ? What's wrong with comments just being grayed out, collapsed and moved to the bottom if they are downvoted for being (too) stupid / trolling / fascist etc? Moderators could just have more voting power.
- singularity2001 9y ago
  OK reading the Medium post [0] I see that toxic comments were the starting points here, not the rampant practice of closing questions for dubious reasons. [0] https://medium.com/@Aprilw/suffering-on-stack-overflow-c46414a34a52 https://medium.com/@Aprilw/suffering-on-stack-overflow-c4641...
  - shagie 9y ago
    I believe that these comments exist when the other tools of moderation of that content have run out and the individuals are using the social moderation tools of comments (that are nearly unlimited) to do that moderation. I further believe that this rudeness could be reduced by improving the encoded moderation tools (votes, close, delete) so that such questionsget up front mentoring or guidance on how to search for the material before they are posted. It should also be noted that the author of the post has a consulting service for improving diversity in the workplace (second paragraph) - there is a promotional aspect to this post. Stack Overflow, as a very central and large place that people perceive as being jerks is an easy and large target to push against. It is also interesting that while this is being held up as an example (from the post): > I used vivid imagery, sure, but you’ll notice that in all my criticism of Stack Overflow, I avoid name-calling, personal attacks, and profanity. For the record, I do not endorse any criticism of Stack Overflow that resorts to these tactics, though I do feel compassion for the pain that leads to this kind of response. that posts on HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16936221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16936221 ) are not being held up to the same standard of avoiding name calling, personal attacks and profanity.
- your-nanny 9y ago
  My guess is that your being grayed out us a response to your question. Either in cheek or earnest.
corobo 9y ago
> HN has both up/down votes This separates the good from the bad > and actual moderators This stops the trolling and spammy pump and dump comments/posts It works pretty well. I've never felt unwelcome on HN, even when something I've posted gets downvoted. I come away with a more "ehhh, yeah I get it" feel rather than anything resembling the bitterness I feel whenever StackOverflow is the only option in search results. Give people powers based on how much they use a site and they'll just start pushing people out of the site. It happened a lot back in the day in IRC, happens all over Wikipedia, happens all over StackOverflow. There's a pattern.
- zaarn 9y ago
  As you have correctly observed, people will start pushing out other people from the site. But who is doing the pushing? On HN, there is a very heavy liberal and left-leaning bias in this pushing (not accusing, this is imply observational data), Reddit is more of a mixed bag for example with some places having a much more strong push from the right and conservatives. People on HN would likely not feel welcome there. If you give power to the people you ultimately end up having a site that reflects how the majority of it's users think. If that is good or bad is another discussion. The mechanisms of a downvote play heavily into this too. Downvotes on HN are rare and only enabled for the elite (+500 karma elite to be specific, this is the exact 'give people power based on how much they use the site'), IIRC SO has a similar policy for some actions, not sure on downvotes. I don't think that is inherently bad, people who are long-time contributors to a community should usually have a better idea on how to improve it than a newcomer. The crucial point might be that on HN there is a limit of power you can achieve. After you get your downvotes, that's it. It only filters out young and inactive (or controversial) accounts but not people who engage in the community. SO might benefit from implementing a similar power ceiling to HN, so that users can't abuse their amount of reputation over others.

stuartd 9y ago

To reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. Disclaimer: apparently I'm an asshole Edit: not moderator