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Because he's criticizing liberals and most people on HN are liberals. Most censorship ("hate speech" included) is code for shutting your political opponents up

Because he's criticizing liberals and most people on HN are liberals. Most censorship ("hate speech" included) is code for shutting your political opponents up. HN makes this really easy by making comments hard to read by removing contrast with the background as they get voted down; post something too much against the grain and it'll get flagged and hidden by default. When you hand users the power to shut those with whom they disagree up, it will inevitably be abused.

kick 7y ago
Paul Graham: I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of comments by one user without reading them in order to subtract maximum karma. Fortunately we now have several levels of software to protect against that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
- kd3 7y ago
  I think the whole voting thing is stupid. It obviously leads to censorship. Someone else's opinion should not count less than others even if you don't agree with them. Assuming we're not talking about plain spam (bots, ads, etc). Graham did not think this through properly. Everyday I come across comments that are downvoted or flagged and can see no reason why that was done apart from subjective ones.
  - dang 7y ago
    Of course, there's a lot of subjectivity. But if you think you can make a site like HN be interesting without voting, you should give it a try. It would be an order of magnitude easier and cheaper to operate, and that would be a real innovation.
    - kd3 7y ago
      Some mentally challenged people actually downvoted you it seems. I have thought about alternatives for a few months now actually. And I admit it's not easy.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  Problem is, it doesn't just attach a "score" to a comment. The UI will gradually hide comments as they are voted farther down; I've seen many that are barely legible. Flagging also hides comments by default. I can't tell you how many reasonable, well-thought out points I've seen that I have to highlight with the mouse to actually read. I wouldn't even see many insightful comments had I not logged in and enabled "showdead". There is a great deal of difference between giving users the tools to express disagreement and giving them the tools to block out the opinions of those with which I disagree. Finally, quoting Paul Graham isn't really an argument. Fine, it's his site, but I'm allowed to say I disagree with how the voting on his site is implemented.
  - dang 7y ago
    If a comment is faded, you can click on its timestamp to go to its page, where it should be in the regular readable black.
dang 7y ago
> most people on HN are liberals "There is a definite right-libertarian bias on HN" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21432833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21432833 "If you go against any kind of socially conservative or libertarian perspective it will get down voted and very likely flagged" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643695 "chilling effect on discourse from leftists" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20804464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20804464 "a leftist can't have a sane discussion on this website" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15926162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15926162 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=13110004&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=13110004&sort=byDate&prefix&pa...
- twgrp 7y ago
  social (left|right) != economic (left|right). But you know that.
  - dang 7y ago
    Sure, but I think our points are missing each other. Mine is that claims of HN's ideological bias are notoriously in the eye of the beholder. Once people run into a few things they dislike—which is inevitable—they imprint on the idea that the community is biased against them. There's nothing objective about it, and all sides do it. I wouldn't say all users do it, but I suspect the more ideologically committed you are, the more you are likely to. That is, it depends on the magnitude of one's ideological vector, but not the direction. I wrote about this yesterday if anyone cares: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21577584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21577584

kick 7y ago

Paul Graham: I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of comments by one user without reading them in order to subtract maximum karma. Fortunately we now have several levels of software to protect against that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

kd3 7y ago
I think the whole voting thing is stupid. It obviously leads to censorship. Someone else's opinion should not count less than others even if you don't agree with them. Assuming we're not talking about plain spam (bots, ads, etc). Graham did not think this through properly. Everyday I come across comments that are downvoted or flagged and can see no reason why that was done apart from subjective ones.
- dang 7y ago
  Of course, there's a lot of subjectivity. But if you think you can make a site like HN be interesting without voting, you should give it a try. It would be an order of magnitude easier and cheaper to operate, and that would be a real innovation.
  - kd3 7y ago
    Some mentally challenged people actually downvoted you it seems. I have thought about alternatives for a few months now actually. And I admit it's not easy.
big_chungus 7y ago
Problem is, it doesn't just attach a "score" to a comment. The UI will gradually hide comments as they are voted farther down; I've seen many that are barely legible. Flagging also hides comments by default. I can't tell you how many reasonable, well-thought out points I've seen that I have to highlight with the mouse to actually read. I wouldn't even see many insightful comments had I not logged in and enabled "showdead". There is a great deal of difference between giving users the tools to express disagreement and giving them the tools to block out the opinions of those with which I disagree. Finally, quoting Paul Graham isn't really an argument. Fine, it's his site, but I'm allowed to say I disagree with how the voting on his site is implemented.
- dang 7y ago
  If a comment is faded, you can click on its timestamp to go to its page, where it should be in the regular readable black.

dang 7y ago

> most people on HN are liberals "There is a definite right-libertarian bias on HN" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21432833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21432833 "If you go against any kind of socially conservative or libertarian perspective it will get down voted and very likely flagged" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643695 "chilling effect on discourse from leftists" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20804464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20804464 "a leftist can't have a sane discussion on this website" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15926162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15926162 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=13110004&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=13110004&sort=byDate&prefix&pa...

twgrp 7y ago
social (left|right) != economic (left|right). But you know that.
- dang 7y ago
  Sure, but I think our points are missing each other. Mine is that claims of HN's ideological bias are notoriously in the eye of the beholder. Once people run into a few things they dislike—which is inevitable—they imprint on the idea that the community is biased against them. There's nothing objective about it, and all sides do it. I wouldn't say all users do it, but I suspect the more ideologically committed you are, the more you are likely to. That is, it depends on the magnitude of one's ideological vector, but not the direction. I wrote about this yesterday if anyone cares: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21577584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21577584