4 ms·

Well a real free speech platform should apply strict automatic moderating rules to political threads and basically tease out the best arguments from all sides,

devlopr 6y ago
Maybe we should move away from free speech into pro speech. Sites that encourage a healthy discussion is what we really want. Anything that discourages that should be reduced in importance anything that encourages that promoted. Patterns of negative conversation defined by fewer quality reply posts get negative points and vice versa for positive or patterns to be encouraged. As things evolve and how people respond changes these patterns can change.
Griffinsauce 6y ago
That is not free speech. That could be called something like "quality speech". With free speech, as defined now, low quality arguments hit the same bar as high quality ones. Yes we should strive to emphasise high quality arguments (even though I fear this is a near impossible task programmatically) but this is not what free speech means. Tldr: according to free speech the dummies and assholes deserve to be heard.
- skynet-9000 6y ago
  I think HN strives to achieve this (as you point out, very high bar) and does a pretty good job with it overall. I do believe that dang's and the moderator teams' light touch has really aided a free-ranging discussion among people of wildly divergent viewpoints, and I for one appreciate this dynamic. That we're even having such a high-quality discussion now really speaks volumes to the seemingly effortless way in which the HN team has developed into a great place to have such a conversation or debate. To be honest, I do not think that HN is always fair to everyone, but it does seem like the moderators do try to be. With that said: Twitter and FB have wildly missed the mark.
  - Griffinsauce 6y ago
    I think any mildly political topic disproves your point. Technological discussions mostly stay high quality but any politics(-adjacent) topic turns into an obvious struggle of moderation and quality. The same goes for Twitter but the balance of topics is heavily skewed towards the latter.
    - the_only_law 6y ago
      I mostly agree, in fact there are certain topics that I will absolutely ignore and block as experience shows there is no room for intellectual discussion about them on here. That being said, I do agree with GP on this point: > To be honest, I do not think that HN is always fair to everyone, but it does seem like the moderators do try to be

devlopr 6y ago

Maybe we should move away from free speech into pro speech. Sites that encourage a healthy discussion is what we really want. Anything that discourages that should be reduced in importance anything that encourages that promoted. Patterns of negative conversation defined by fewer quality reply posts get negative points and vice versa for positive or patterns to be encouraged. As things evolve and how people respond changes these patterns can change.

Griffinsauce 6y ago

That is not free speech. That could be called something like "quality speech". With free speech, as defined now, low quality arguments hit the same bar as high quality ones. Yes we should strive to emphasise high quality arguments (even though I fear this is a near impossible task programmatically) but this is not what free speech means. Tldr: according to free speech the dummies and assholes deserve to be heard.

skynet-9000 6y ago
I think HN strives to achieve this (as you point out, very high bar) and does a pretty good job with it overall. I do believe that dang's and the moderator teams' light touch has really aided a free-ranging discussion among people of wildly divergent viewpoints, and I for one appreciate this dynamic. That we're even having such a high-quality discussion now really speaks volumes to the seemingly effortless way in which the HN team has developed into a great place to have such a conversation or debate. To be honest, I do not think that HN is always fair to everyone, but it does seem like the moderators do try to be. With that said: Twitter and FB have wildly missed the mark.
- Griffinsauce 6y ago
  I think any mildly political topic disproves your point. Technological discussions mostly stay high quality but any politics(-adjacent) topic turns into an obvious struggle of moderation and quality. The same goes for Twitter but the balance of topics is heavily skewed towards the latter.
  - the_only_law 6y ago
    I mostly agree, in fact there are certain topics that I will absolutely ignore and block as experience shows there is no room for intellectual discussion about them on here. That being said, I do agree with GP on this point: > To be honest, I do not think that HN is always fair to everyone, but it does seem like the moderators do try to be