4 ms·

In a broader sense, sure. But I've witnessed very little of that here, which is mostly self moderated with a nudge from the admins. I've noticed this also in

by axaxs 7y ago

In a broader sense, sure. But I've witnessed very little of that here, which is mostly self moderated with a nudge from the admins. I've noticed this also in other smallish niche communities. Reddit has become so mainstream that everyone has a place. I think the big problems arise in the more general subs where all the miscreants from the web intersect. Same with YouTube, or any large community really. No amount of censorship or moderation can solve this, it's a problem for any sufficiently large userbase. If a solution can exist is doubtful, even.

thecatspaw 7y ago
> In a broader sense, sure. But I've witnessed very little of that here, which is mostly self moderated with a nudge from the admins. I've noticed this also in other smallish niche communities. hn also seems to be more accepting of opinions which people disagree with. Here it seems to lead more to a civil debate about why you are wrong, whereas on reddit you would more often than not get downvoted and called names.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  > hn also seems to be more accepting of opinions which people disagree with. More than reddit. But HN is much more homogeneous than reddit is. There’s plenty of perspectives that generally aren’t welcome for discussion here. HN also makes an effort to moderate against political flaming. You could argue that the moderation isn’t entirely unbiased, but it does keep the comment threads more civilized.
  - sdan 7y ago
    Yeah, HN is definitely a lot more homogeneous. Even CS centered subreddits have somewhat toxic cultures because of what anonymity sustains. I think HN has a lot fewer visitors than Reddit but has a lot more conscious, thoughtful, experienced, and extremely intelligent minds to think and discuss about topics in the tech field.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      That’s probably true (though I’m not sure we’re any more intelligent than any other internet community). My point was just that we shouldn’t mistake homogeny for tolerance of opposing views.
      - kebman 7y ago
        Well, homogeny certainly makes a group far easier to lead, since disagreements will usually be on grounds that are way easier to reach a liveable compromise on.
        AmericanChopper 7y ago
        It means there are less opposing view points to disagree with. Not that we're any better at managing disagreement. > homogeny certainly makes a group far easier to lead What about the value of diversity?
- GoblinSlayer 7y ago
  Do you compare to the_donald? /r/programming looks less censored than YC.
fastball 7y ago
The moderation here goes far beyond "nudges".
- o10449366 7y ago
  Not to mention that flags on HN are much more powerful for suppression discussion than downvotes are on Reddit. I find discussion on this website pretty unrewarding because a story can go from hundreds of upvotes and top of the front page to discoverable only through search in a matter of minutes--just from a handful of flags and an extremely opaque weighting system. I also dislike that moderators here can arbitrarily rearrange the comment tree. I've seen several good responses and rebuttals get buried or get taken out of context unfairly as a result of this heavy handed moderation, which also often comes without warning or acknowledgement.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > I've several good responses and rebuttals get buried or get taken out of context unfairly as a result of this heavy handed moderation, which also often comes without warning or acknowledgement. The comments that get detached are marked as such in a direct reply, with a link to the context. But speaking of that, I wonder what happened here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20040963.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20040963...
    - o10449366 7y ago
      > The comments that get detached are marked as such in a direct reply, with a link to the context. Not true, or not (always) true. My comment here was a response to the top comment in the thread, but it was detached without context, warning, or comment and for seemingly no reason. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809432
indigochill 7y ago
The solution in my mind is simple (and therefore entirely possibly wrong): keep autonomous communities small. I like to think of this as the "Tower of Babel" problem, where basically all the world's people cooperated on one monumental task, and God "confused their language" so they couldn't complete it. We see this pattern any time people form a critical mass: fragments form, there's a falling out, and the whole thing comes apart. Take any sufficiently old group of people and the pattern asserts itself. The great thing about the internet is even if all the primary communities are small, it's trivial for members to inter-mix on their choice of small communities, self-selecting for culture fit rather than requiring armies of moderators to keep the conversation on track (though some moderation is still necessary).

by axaxs 7y ago

thecatspaw 7y ago

> In a broader sense, sure. But I've witnessed very little of that here, which is mostly self moderated with a nudge from the admins. I've noticed this also in other smallish niche communities. hn also seems to be more accepting of opinions which people disagree with. Here it seems to lead more to a civil debate about why you are wrong, whereas on reddit you would more often than not get downvoted and called names.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
> hn also seems to be more accepting of opinions which people disagree with. More than reddit. But HN is much more homogeneous than reddit is. There’s plenty of perspectives that generally aren’t welcome for discussion here. HN also makes an effort to moderate against political flaming. You could argue that the moderation isn’t entirely unbiased, but it does keep the comment threads more civilized.
- sdan 7y ago
  Yeah, HN is definitely a lot more homogeneous. Even CS centered subreddits have somewhat toxic cultures because of what anonymity sustains. I think HN has a lot fewer visitors than Reddit but has a lot more conscious, thoughtful, experienced, and extremely intelligent minds to think and discuss about topics in the tech field.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    That’s probably true (though I’m not sure we’re any more intelligent than any other internet community). My point was just that we shouldn’t mistake homogeny for tolerance of opposing views.
    - kebman 7y ago
      Well, homogeny certainly makes a group far easier to lead, since disagreements will usually be on grounds that are way easier to reach a liveable compromise on.
      - AmericanChopper 7y ago
        It means there are less opposing view points to disagree with. Not that we're any better at managing disagreement. > homogeny certainly makes a group far easier to lead What about the value of diversity?
GoblinSlayer 7y ago
Do you compare to the_donald? /r/programming looks less censored than YC.

fastball 7y ago

The moderation here goes far beyond "nudges".

o10449366 7y ago
Not to mention that flags on HN are much more powerful for suppression discussion than downvotes are on Reddit. I find discussion on this website pretty unrewarding because a story can go from hundreds of upvotes and top of the front page to discoverable only through search in a matter of minutes--just from a handful of flags and an extremely opaque weighting system. I also dislike that moderators here can arbitrarily rearrange the comment tree. I've seen several good responses and rebuttals get buried or get taken out of context unfairly as a result of this heavy handed moderation, which also often comes without warning or acknowledgement.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > I've several good responses and rebuttals get buried or get taken out of context unfairly as a result of this heavy handed moderation, which also often comes without warning or acknowledgement. The comments that get detached are marked as such in a direct reply, with a link to the context. But speaking of that, I wonder what happened here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20040963.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20040963...
  - o10449366 7y ago
    > The comments that get detached are marked as such in a direct reply, with a link to the context. Not true, or not (always) true. My comment here was a response to the top comment in the thread, but it was detached without context, warning, or comment and for seemingly no reason. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809432

indigochill 7y ago

The solution in my mind is simple (and therefore entirely possibly wrong): keep autonomous communities small. I like to think of this as the "Tower of Babel" problem, where basically all the world's people cooperated on one monumental task, and God "confused their language" so they couldn't complete it. We see this pattern any time people form a critical mass: fragments form, there's a falling out, and the whole thing comes apart. Take any sufficiently old group of people and the pattern asserts itself. The great thing about the internet is even if all the primary communities are small, it's trivial for members to inter-mix on their choice of small communities, self-selecting for culture fit rather than requiring armies of moderators to keep the conversation on track (though some moderation is still necessary).