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dang really is a great moderator. He's got a good eye for spotting problematic behavior, and a level head for dealing with it. He's set me straight in the past,

dang really is a great moderator. He's got a good eye for spotting problematic behavior, and a level head for dealing with it. He's set me straight in the past, and I'm glad he did. The way he remains both professional and empathetic, even when dealing with sensitive users and topics, really exudes the best of hacker news ethos. Here's to you, dang!

chris_wot 8y ago
Can't say I've experienced this, he treated me pretty badly in the past. Most times he is OK though. By all means downvote me, btw. This backslapping post on the front page only wants to hear about how amazing the mods are, so the bias is pretty evident.
- danso 8y ago
  I didn't downvote but I think others might have because you leveled an allegation so vague as to be irrefutable. I think dang has been a great mod and have only seen the interactions that involve me, or have been upvoted. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in seeing substantive criticism from those who've experienced differently.
  - chris_wot 8y ago
    It’s kind of hard to do. Almost certainly dang or another mod would rate limit or shadow ban me. It’s their site to do as they will, but it strikes me as interesting that they are held up as saints when they are anything but. Note that I’m not saying they are monsters either, but as someone on the receiving end of dang’s conduct I personally cannot agree with this post. It’s not like they are really accountable for their actions.
    - bhengaij 8y ago
      They're just regular mods. On a toxic one-up community. I'd like then to at least have a courtesy of mentioning when someone is (shadow) banned.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - reitanqild 8y ago
        I think they don't shadow ban people anymore since sometime after pg left. I am somewhat rate limited it seems for reasons but I won't complain. I'm possibly more annoying than them.
        choot 8y ago
        > I think they don't shadow ban people anymore since sometime after pg left. That's false. They also take away your individual ability to post a thread or upvote. They do this silently.
        bdndndnndnd 8y ago
        I am shadow-banned, for instance.
    - girvo 8y ago
      > Almost certainly dang or another mod would rate limit or shadow ban me. See that's where you lose me, I'm afraid. This is why it's vague to the point of being irrefutable.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - waterhouse 8y ago
    If there were a search engine that, say, turned up comment-pairs where dang replied to chris_wot, then it would be easy to get a sampling of their (public) interactions. I doubt any normal search engines (or even hn.algolia.com) do it. (And both posters are active enough that going through history is impractical. BTW, as one data point, 14 of dang's last 36 comments contain the word "please".) Perhaps someone has a database of HN comments that could be queried in such a way. But yeah, in the absence of links or a pointer to such a database, it's not substantiated and so the reader's evaluation is going to depend primarily on their prior opinions.
    - danso 8y ago
      It wouldn't cover situations where the mods took action or retaliated without publicly commenting. But to your question about a queryable database, such a thing exists on BigQuery: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17471117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17471117 edit: apparently it's updated daily, with 18,507,035 comments as of now: https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/table/bigquery-public-data:hacker_news.full?tab=details&pli=1 https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/table/bigquery-public-data...
- dieterrams 8y ago
  I vouched for (undeaded) your comment, since I think the flagging/downvoting runs contrary to the principles of discourse we're (at least implicitly) celebrating here, smelling of tribalism/favoritism. Just because you view someone favorably, and someone else claims something negative about that person, doesn't mean you just get to flagbomb them into oblivion. The right response here is simply to ask for further substantiation, as danso did. It's not clear to me that the mods are directly responsible for what you've experienced. If you haven't, I would contact them for clarification.
  - pvg 8y ago
    smelling of tribalism/favoritism. Downvoting something for complaining about votes is fairly normal. Downvote baiting on top is flagworthy. I imagine lots of people quite sensibly apply these as a matter of course.
    - dieterrams 8y ago
      One imagines they do. I'm not sure that's what's going on here, though.
      - pvg 8y ago
        Why wouldn't exactly that be going on here? It's a grade-A downvotable, flaggable comment.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        dieterrams 8y ago
        Jesus Christ. Suppose he is being treated unfairly by the mods. Is that not worth complaining about? I don't give a crap about some silly "downvote every comment complaining about downvotes" rule. Complaining about downvotes was frowned upon because people get inexplicably downvoted as a matter of course here, and the frequency of complaints was deemed sufficiently detracting to warrant being frowned upon. Being treated unfairly by the mods, however, is another matter entirely. I haven't seen a preponderance of evidence suggesting the complaint was ill-founded, and the guy's tenure and comment history (what I looked through of it) do not suggest he's an ill-mannered troll, so I reserve judgement as to whether the complaint is in the wrong. Like any reasonable person would.

chris_wot 8y ago

Can't say I've experienced this, he treated me pretty badly in the past. Most times he is OK though. By all means downvote me, btw. This backslapping post on the front page only wants to hear about how amazing the mods are, so the bias is pretty evident.

danso 8y ago
I didn't downvote but I think others might have because you leveled an allegation so vague as to be irrefutable. I think dang has been a great mod and have only seen the interactions that involve me, or have been upvoted. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in seeing substantive criticism from those who've experienced differently.
- chris_wot 8y ago
  It’s kind of hard to do. Almost certainly dang or another mod would rate limit or shadow ban me. It’s their site to do as they will, but it strikes me as interesting that they are held up as saints when they are anything but. Note that I’m not saying they are monsters either, but as someone on the receiving end of dang’s conduct I personally cannot agree with this post. It’s not like they are really accountable for their actions.
  - bhengaij 8y ago
    They're just regular mods. On a toxic one-up community. I'd like then to at least have a courtesy of mentioning when someone is (shadow) banned.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - reitanqild 8y ago
      I think they don't shadow ban people anymore since sometime after pg left. I am somewhat rate limited it seems for reasons but I won't complain. I'm possibly more annoying than them.
      - choot 8y ago
        > I think they don't shadow ban people anymore since sometime after pg left. That's false. They also take away your individual ability to post a thread or upvote. They do this silently.
        bdndndnndnd 8y ago
        I am shadow-banned, for instance.
  - girvo 8y ago
    > Almost certainly dang or another mod would rate limit or shadow ban me. See that's where you lose me, I'm afraid. This is why it's vague to the point of being irrefutable.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- waterhouse 8y ago
  If there were a search engine that, say, turned up comment-pairs where dang replied to chris_wot, then it would be easy to get a sampling of their (public) interactions. I doubt any normal search engines (or even hn.algolia.com) do it. (And both posters are active enough that going through history is impractical. BTW, as one data point, 14 of dang's last 36 comments contain the word "please".) Perhaps someone has a database of HN comments that could be queried in such a way. But yeah, in the absence of links or a pointer to such a database, it's not substantiated and so the reader's evaluation is going to depend primarily on their prior opinions.
  - danso 8y ago
    It wouldn't cover situations where the mods took action or retaliated without publicly commenting. But to your question about a queryable database, such a thing exists on BigQuery: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17471117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17471117 edit: apparently it's updated daily, with 18,507,035 comments as of now: https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/table/bigquery-public-data:hacker_news.full?tab=details&pli=1 https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/table/bigquery-public-data...
dieterrams 8y ago
I vouched for (undeaded) your comment, since I think the flagging/downvoting runs contrary to the principles of discourse we're (at least implicitly) celebrating here, smelling of tribalism/favoritism. Just because you view someone favorably, and someone else claims something negative about that person, doesn't mean you just get to flagbomb them into oblivion. The right response here is simply to ask for further substantiation, as danso did. It's not clear to me that the mods are directly responsible for what you've experienced. If you haven't, I would contact them for clarification.
- pvg 8y ago
  smelling of tribalism/favoritism. Downvoting something for complaining about votes is fairly normal. Downvote baiting on top is flagworthy. I imagine lots of people quite sensibly apply these as a matter of course.
  - dieterrams 8y ago
    One imagines they do. I'm not sure that's what's going on here, though.
    - pvg 8y ago
      Why wouldn't exactly that be going on here? It's a grade-A downvotable, flaggable comment.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - dieterrams 8y ago
        Jesus Christ. Suppose he is being treated unfairly by the mods. Is that not worth complaining about? I don't give a crap about some silly "downvote every comment complaining about downvotes" rule. Complaining about downvotes was frowned upon because people get inexplicably downvoted as a matter of course here, and the frequency of complaints was deemed sufficiently detracting to warrant being frowned upon. Being treated unfairly by the mods, however, is another matter entirely. I haven't seen a preponderance of evidence suggesting the complaint was ill-founded, and the guy's tenure and comment history (what I looked through of it) do not suggest he's an ill-mannered troll, so I reserve judgement as to whether the complaint is in the wrong. Like any reasonable person would.