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The quiet malleability of data on this site is disturbing. Titles, article links, and timestamps are all changed without notice on a regular basis. Older discus

The quiet malleability of data on this site is disturbing. Titles, article links, and timestamps are all changed without notice on a regular basis. Older discussions become disorienting as their subjects are silently memory-holed and replaced. Users are shadowbanned and throttled for undesirable ideas. There is no written policy for any of this and you feel like you're crazy until you hear rumors from someone who talked to someone who emailed the internet hall monitors.

dang 7y ago
That seems a little overwrought. None of this is secret and we answer questions about it all the time, every day.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  What is the full list of moderator actions that promote, remove, or change content on Hacker News which are not listed in the FAQ? Why are these actions not listed? Why is there no indicator when an instance of one of these actions has occurred?
  - dang 7y ago
    We don't maintain an encyclopedia of HN moderation for a bunch of reasons. One is that such a compendium would only be of interest to a small subset of users, and they are just the kind who would never be satisfied by it. There's a certain sort of moderation discussion in which, no matter how patiently you answer objections, your answers are never accepted and only spawn new objections. To engage is to participate in a denial-of-service on yourself, dancing ever faster to a piper who will never stop. It doesn't take long to learn what a mistake that is. It sucks energy, razes morale, and never works. The vast majority of HN users aren't like that. They find the site interesting, are grateful that we maintain it, and respond with happiness when we answer their questions. That's the population we're excited to serve. So our approach is to operate by the principles outlined in the site guidelines, spend most of our resources trying to make HN more interesting (or at least stave off its decline), and answer specific questions when they come up. Not because of sinister secrets, just because of basic resource management: it's the best use of our limited resources and the best way to manage the effects on ourselves so we don't burn out quite so quickly. It's fairly clear that the community is happy with this approach, because if it weren't, we'd be hearing about nothing else. Then there's the grousing sort of commenter who makes dark insinuations about moderator manipulation. There are actually fewer of those than it seems, because they tend to cycle through various accounts over the years. I think they have a role to play, too, and am happy to engage up to a point—but only as long as it feels like the discussion is useful for the general audience too.

dang 7y ago

That seems a little overwrought. None of this is secret and we answer questions about it all the time, every day.

homonculus1 7y ago
What is the full list of moderator actions that promote, remove, or change content on Hacker News which are not listed in the FAQ? Why are these actions not listed? Why is there no indicator when an instance of one of these actions has occurred?
- dang 7y ago
  We don't maintain an encyclopedia of HN moderation for a bunch of reasons. One is that such a compendium would only be of interest to a small subset of users, and they are just the kind who would never be satisfied by it. There's a certain sort of moderation discussion in which, no matter how patiently you answer objections, your answers are never accepted and only spawn new objections. To engage is to participate in a denial-of-service on yourself, dancing ever faster to a piper who will never stop. It doesn't take long to learn what a mistake that is. It sucks energy, razes morale, and never works. The vast majority of HN users aren't like that. They find the site interesting, are grateful that we maintain it, and respond with happiness when we answer their questions. That's the population we're excited to serve. So our approach is to operate by the principles outlined in the site guidelines, spend most of our resources trying to make HN more interesting (or at least stave off its decline), and answer specific questions when they come up. Not because of sinister secrets, just because of basic resource management: it's the best use of our limited resources and the best way to manage the effects on ourselves so we don't burn out quite so quickly. It's fairly clear that the community is happy with this approach, because if it weren't, we'd be hearing about nothing else. Then there's the grousing sort of commenter who makes dark insinuations about moderator manipulation. There are actually fewer of those than it seems, because they tend to cycle through various accounts over the years. I think they have a role to play, too, and am happy to engage up to a point—but only as long as it feels like the discussion is useful for the general audience too.