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PS From what you say, it seems that mods are pretty powerful. They can turn a story around or bury it or whatever.. That is all invisible to us users, right?
by feralimal 6y ago
PS
From what you say, it seems that mods are pretty powerful. They can turn a story around or bury it or whatever.. That is all invisible to us users, right?
This is to say, we can't say whether the story is authentically popular or unpopular, as we don't have that information.
Gah! What happened to free speech?
I know that this is a private site... I know.
But still, can't we even know that we're being manipulated? Is this our life now, where we cannot be trusted to make judgements for ourselves, but instead all information must be massaged and managed for us?!!?
- gus_massa 6y agoThe mods can literally unplug the sever or modify the sorting algorithm to use the reverse order, or whatever they want.
- feralimal 6y agoYes. I just don't get why its accepted or somehow morally ok to silently manage information for others. The key word is: 'silently'. A mod should be able to manage the conversation, kick people off, delete comments etc, fine - but there should be a note to indicate how whatever bit was impacted. Otherwise, moderators are able to act like gods over a conversation or a forum, accountable to no one. Well, I suppose they will have to judge themselves, but I don't think they are really going to take themselves to task! If people are acting in good faith, they may present information that may be true AND unpleasant to accept or not per consensus opinion. The scientific method should accept the various viewpoints and converge to a better picture of reality. But that can't happen if dissenting voices are closed down. It always surprises me that scientific thinkers, such as there are on this site, are not strongly in support of lots of voices. I don't mean that HN should become a popularity contest or something, but that honest sharing of curiosity and personal experience should be encouraged, not silenced. Seriously, apart from some crap sites (eg 4chan), where can the 'unthinkable' be raised and discussed sensibly nowadays? I don't think there is anywhere.