4 ms·

This site is heavily moderated (read: manipulated) by its owners/mods, and I expect censorship for anything that might threaten their business relationships or

This site is heavily moderated (read: manipulated) by its owners/mods, and I expect censorship for anything that might threaten their business relationships or cause controversy they don't want. It's more restrictive than reddit today, let alone reddit when it blew up. I'm not sure to what extent the narratives here are organic or not.

rising-sky 6y ago
I'm sorry but I don't think it is helpful to make claims like this without presenting evidence, otherwise it's just an assumption, which is fodder for unfounded conspiracy theories, which again is not really constructive. It reminds me of a saying: "people criticize what they don't understand"
- LegitShady 6y ago
  I understand it, I just dont think there's a purpose in arguing control of a platform they own. This site is heavily manipulated, the moderation is heavy, and censorship (things disappearing) make it hard to present evidence, just like the post in question 'disappeared' until it suddenly appeared. It only changes how you should perceive the site, it doesn't change anything else. Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'. This is a great place to talk about computer stuff, but I don't believe any narratives here are organic by default.
  - ohyeshedid 6y ago
    You could try setting 'showdead' to yes, then you can see content that's been downvoted, flagged, dead, and/or bans. The vast majority of moderation on HN is from users, not the mods.
    - LegitShady 6y ago
      any censorship systems in place to protect the company could easily circumvent that setting. I understand that there is user moderation, but I also understand that doesn't mean anything about top down censorship.
  - dang 6y ago
    > Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'. Now I'm starting to get a little irritated. I know this is the internet, but do you really think it's ok to accuse people of outright corruption based on literally nothing? Would you like to be smeared in that way? Not only do we take great pains never to do anything of that nature, it is literally the first principle of HN moderation to do the opposite: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... What you're alleging would be both wrong and dumb. The good faith of the HN community is the only asset that YC has in HN. If that goes, the whole thing collapses. Why would we risk that? Taking the greatest care with it that we can is our #1 responsibility. Personally I wouldn't want this job if I had to do it any other way. Another commenter in this thread made insinuations of this nature while mentioning the Triplebyte controversy from a couple weeks ago, apparently without noticing that it's a perfect counterexample to all of this.
dang 6y ago
You can say moderated, manipulated, curated, censored - people just choose between these words depending on how they feel. None of this is secret, or new. HN has always been a curated site. I've posted about all this countless times and answered countless emails. No one has any trouble getting their questions answered if they actually want a real answer. We don't moderate HN with specific business interests in mind because that would make it less valuable. HN's value to YC is simply in being as good/interesting as possible, because that's what keeps the community happy. Plenty of past explanation is at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That's the main point, but really, you'd have to reach deep into the pool of imagination to fish out any specific business interest in moderating this story in the first place. What a bizarre discussion.

rising-sky 6y ago

I'm sorry but I don't think it is helpful to make claims like this without presenting evidence, otherwise it's just an assumption, which is fodder for unfounded conspiracy theories, which again is not really constructive. It reminds me of a saying: "people criticize what they don't understand"

LegitShady 6y ago
I understand it, I just dont think there's a purpose in arguing control of a platform they own. This site is heavily manipulated, the moderation is heavy, and censorship (things disappearing) make it hard to present evidence, just like the post in question 'disappeared' until it suddenly appeared. It only changes how you should perceive the site, it doesn't change anything else. Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'. This is a great place to talk about computer stuff, but I don't believe any narratives here are organic by default.
- ohyeshedid 6y ago
  You could try setting 'showdead' to yes, then you can see content that's been downvoted, flagged, dead, and/or bans. The vast majority of moderation on HN is from users, not the mods.
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    any censorship systems in place to protect the company could easily circumvent that setting. I understand that there is user moderation, but I also understand that doesn't mean anything about top down censorship.
- dang 6y ago
  > Understand that anything controversial or not in YC's interest will disappear and won't be available for 'evidence'. Now I'm starting to get a little irritated. I know this is the internet, but do you really think it's ok to accuse people of outright corruption based on literally nothing? Would you like to be smeared in that way? Not only do we take great pains never to do anything of that nature, it is literally the first principle of HN moderation to do the opposite: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... What you're alleging would be both wrong and dumb. The good faith of the HN community is the only asset that YC has in HN. If that goes, the whole thing collapses. Why would we risk that? Taking the greatest care with it that we can is our #1 responsibility. Personally I wouldn't want this job if I had to do it any other way. Another commenter in this thread made insinuations of this nature while mentioning the Triplebyte controversy from a couple weeks ago, apparently without noticing that it's a perfect counterexample to all of this.

dang 6y ago

You can say moderated, manipulated, curated, censored - people just choose between these words depending on how they feel. None of this is secret, or new. HN has always been a curated site. I've posted about all this countless times and answered countless emails. No one has any trouble getting their questions answered if they actually want a real answer. We don't moderate HN with specific business interests in mind because that would make it less valuable. HN's value to YC is simply in being as good/interesting as possible, because that's what keeps the community happy. Plenty of past explanation is at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That's the main point, but really, you'd have to reach deep into the pool of imagination to fish out any specific business interest in moderating this story in the first place. What a bizarre discussion.