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Thanks for vouching, that was the thread I linked in the GP post dang was replying to. Constructive ideation on fixing a community problem of censorship is now

Thanks for vouching, that was the thread I linked in the GP post dang was replying to. Constructive ideation on fixing a community problem of censorship is now "metadrama", Orwellian. I'm open to it not being a problem, but we can't even have that discussion. Taibbi frequently gets flagged, he's not liberal enough for the site. I don't have the motivation to now but if someone wrote a "HN has a flagging problem" and got lucky with timing, maybe they'd listen? I may have to just accept one of the last decent sites for discussing tech events is going down the same path as the rest of them, though tbh it's been on the path for a long time now (I've noticed at least 15 decent articles in the last year flagged for essentially being "not liberal" despite high quality content).

dang 6y ago
You're talking as if there's some new development here but HN has operated this way for many years. People are prone to interpret normal fluctuation as catastrophic decline. They were saying similar things about HN well over a decade ago. It always reminds me of what Voltaire said when told that he drank too much coffee and that it was a slow poison: "It must be very slow". [1] Taibbi pieces have had more significant threads here than most political commentators. If HN did as you seem to be suggesting and disallowed flags on any articles like this—the ones that you like, plus the ones that everyone else likes, since why should one user be privileged over another?—then the site would consist of nothing but articles like this. That's obviously not its mandate. I don't see how this is "Orwellian", but it's not always easy to know WWOD (what would Orwell do). [1] Actually it was Fontenelle but Voltaire makes for a better story. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/11/22/coffee/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/11/22/coffee/
- nwienert 6y ago
  So many strawmen! Dang maybe you’re just burnt out or something, because you’re not replying to anything I said. I would never and didn’t at all ask for privilege. I set out suggestions to avoid majoritarianism, systemically. One - make flags “cost”, for less brigades. Two, make vouches cost more, but also have more weight, as vouching can protect a minority view. I never said disallow flags on articles “like that”? I’m not even a big fan of Taibbi, I’m just a bit disgusted by people who would flag away things they just don’t like politically. It’s a problem, but my guess is it suits your politics and your bosses, so it’s not very pressing. What’s Orwellian is that you can’t seem to grapple with anything I’m saying and instead or twisting it all to totally different arguments, while using quite creative yet generic words to hide behind authority. Read your initial reply: The reason you give for why it’s valid to dismiss an article on simple suggestions to fix flagging was... “it was flagged”, it was “Metadrama”, and it would (in your psychic wisdom) lead to a “generic hodgepodge” discussion. Could literally apply to any HN submission about the site itself, and in this reply you seem to had misread it as some beg for privilege for myself or something weird like that. I’ve also been on HN for over a decade. I’ve seen a ton of controversies, I never waded in really. I’ve held my tongue for years on the suppression one, it’s been obvious for years. I’ve seen many claiming it went downhill. In fact at my first job a decade ago I remember multiple co-workers warning me how it’s gone downhill. I know it’s always been that way. But the reasons it was going downhill before and now are categorically different. Before it was due to incessant flame wars, bad faith pedantry, lack of openness to new ideas (but within discussion). Now - it’s literal flag brigading. To be honest, this happened near the election last time. People lose sanity, and then they see abuse of power as “popular” and therefore justified, and then after the election the tide will naturally turn and you’ll forget the problem for a bit. Censorship, majority rule, there aren’t the same as the critiques I’ve seen many many times over the years. Before it was about quality of discussion, now it’s about banning discussion entirely.
  - dang 6y ago
    I didn't think or mean to imply that you were asking for special privilege. I just wanted to make the logic explicit that if we were to disable the flagging system, we'd have to do it across the board, and that would turn HN into a political site. It's true that I'm using somewhat generic terms to describe these situations but there's a simple reason for that: there are hundreds of users asking (and sometimes outright demanding) answers and only one of me to answer them. If there's something specific that I said that you feel is unclear I can try to clarify it. I don't find words like "suppression" super helpful because they mostly just add negative emotional valence to something that's not secret and is rather benign. If we have more political opinion pieces and/or inflammatory political stories on the front page, then we have less room for discussion of the topics that HN primarily exists for. You can call that suppression if you want. Is a florist suppressing chocolate by only offering a small selection of the latter in their flower shop?

dang 6y ago

You're talking as if there's some new development here but HN has operated this way for many years. People are prone to interpret normal fluctuation as catastrophic decline. They were saying similar things about HN well over a decade ago. It always reminds me of what Voltaire said when told that he drank too much coffee and that it was a slow poison: "It must be very slow". [1] Taibbi pieces have had more significant threads here than most political commentators. If HN did as you seem to be suggesting and disallowed flags on any articles like this—the ones that you like, plus the ones that everyone else likes, since why should one user be privileged over another?—then the site would consist of nothing but articles like this. That's obviously not its mandate. I don't see how this is "Orwellian", but it's not always easy to know WWOD (what would Orwell do). [1] Actually it was Fontenelle but Voltaire makes for a better story. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/11/22/coffee/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/11/22/coffee/

nwienert 6y ago
So many strawmen! Dang maybe you’re just burnt out or something, because you’re not replying to anything I said. I would never and didn’t at all ask for privilege. I set out suggestions to avoid majoritarianism, systemically. One - make flags “cost”, for less brigades. Two, make vouches cost more, but also have more weight, as vouching can protect a minority view. I never said disallow flags on articles “like that”? I’m not even a big fan of Taibbi, I’m just a bit disgusted by people who would flag away things they just don’t like politically. It’s a problem, but my guess is it suits your politics and your bosses, so it’s not very pressing. What’s Orwellian is that you can’t seem to grapple with anything I’m saying and instead or twisting it all to totally different arguments, while using quite creative yet generic words to hide behind authority. Read your initial reply: The reason you give for why it’s valid to dismiss an article on simple suggestions to fix flagging was... “it was flagged”, it was “Metadrama”, and it would (in your psychic wisdom) lead to a “generic hodgepodge” discussion. Could literally apply to any HN submission about the site itself, and in this reply you seem to had misread it as some beg for privilege for myself or something weird like that. I’ve also been on HN for over a decade. I’ve seen a ton of controversies, I never waded in really. I’ve held my tongue for years on the suppression one, it’s been obvious for years. I’ve seen many claiming it went downhill. In fact at my first job a decade ago I remember multiple co-workers warning me how it’s gone downhill. I know it’s always been that way. But the reasons it was going downhill before and now are categorically different. Before it was due to incessant flame wars, bad faith pedantry, lack of openness to new ideas (but within discussion). Now - it’s literal flag brigading. To be honest, this happened near the election last time. People lose sanity, and then they see abuse of power as “popular” and therefore justified, and then after the election the tide will naturally turn and you’ll forget the problem for a bit. Censorship, majority rule, there aren’t the same as the critiques I’ve seen many many times over the years. Before it was about quality of discussion, now it’s about banning discussion entirely.
- dang 6y ago
  I didn't think or mean to imply that you were asking for special privilege. I just wanted to make the logic explicit that if we were to disable the flagging system, we'd have to do it across the board, and that would turn HN into a political site. It's true that I'm using somewhat generic terms to describe these situations but there's a simple reason for that: there are hundreds of users asking (and sometimes outright demanding) answers and only one of me to answer them. If there's something specific that I said that you feel is unclear I can try to clarify it. I don't find words like "suppression" super helpful because they mostly just add negative emotional valence to something that's not secret and is rather benign. If we have more political opinion pieces and/or inflammatory political stories on the front page, then we have less room for discussion of the topics that HN primarily exists for. You can call that suppression if you want. Is a florist suppressing chocolate by only offering a small selection of the latter in their flower shop?