24 ms·

I think your post could have not included: “Much as I'd love to, it's not my place to say why the original title was inaccurate, so I'll just remind you all th

by bebop 5y ago

I think your post could have not included: “Much as I'd love to, it's not my place to say why the original title was inaccurate, so I'll just remind you all that there are two or more sides to every story and not everything on Twitter is true.” And “Normally, of course, we would downweight this sort of petty drama.” And could have avoided unhelpful conflict in the threads below. You sort of threw your opinion out without expressing it outright. For what it is worth I have no opinion either way and generally agree this sort of post should be downweighted.

dang 5y ago
I hear you, but both of those sentences are there for a reason. Without the first I'd be getting lots of "how is it inaccurate?" responses, and without the second I'd be getting protests about moderation practices. My intention was to give enough information (I'm not saying it's a lot) to preempt avalanches of predictable objections. I'm sure I could have done it better, though, because this was far from what Scott and I used to call a "splash-free dive".
- bebop 5y ago
  I appreciate that this is probably a no win situation. Thanks as always for doing your best and keeping this community healthy.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    There isn't a loss. There is nothing wrong with adding some sass to the comment if the moderator hat comes off. It'd be unreasonable to expect him to turn a blind eye to a situation where he has more at stake and better information than 80% of the comments. Dan's opinion is only different from the average HN commentor because it leads to people being banned. As long as there is a careful separation of personal opinion from an official moderator view there isn't anything to take note of from one personal opinion.
    - bebop 5y ago
      I meant more that no matter what was said, someone would take offense.
- garmaine 5y ago
  You could just say “As there is a conflict of interest, I will not comment on the substance of this tweet.”
  - dang 5y ago
    But that's not the reason and wouldn't be true. There's another aspect too: I try to avoid being a bloodless ghoul in communicating with this community. People here don't want stiff corporate pantomimes, and that suits me fine, because I would hate to do that; or rather I can't because my body would reject it. That's an old Willie Brown line btw.
    - hutrdvnj 5y ago
      I would like to hear the other side of the story. I understand that dang is not the best person to tell us, but maybe there's someone else?
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Are you claiming you do not have a conflict of interest here?
      - dang 5y ago
        No not at all. I'm saying that it's not the reason why I couldn't comment further. The conflict of interest (I'm not sure that's the most precise term here, but I'll go with it) is obvious, everyone's aware of it, and it doesn't normally (nor should it) stop me from sharing information with the community. HN readers are curious, generally like more information rather than less, and are smart enough to make up their own minds. And although you can call it a conflict, actually just sharing what's happening is a way to build trust with readers. The difference in this case was not any of that—it's just that it's not my call what YC does or doesn't publish about its internal affairs, so I don't get to share information like I normally would. I don't like that; my comfort zone is, like I said, to tell HN readers whatever relevant information I can and let them decide for themselves. That has worked well over the years and continues to. But other people have different jobs and need to make decisions from different perspectives.

by bebop 5y ago

dang 5y ago

I hear you, but both of those sentences are there for a reason. Without the first I'd be getting lots of "how is it inaccurate?" responses, and without the second I'd be getting protests about moderation practices. My intention was to give enough information (I'm not saying it's a lot) to preempt avalanches of predictable objections. I'm sure I could have done it better, though, because this was far from what Scott and I used to call a "splash-free dive".

bebop 5y ago
I appreciate that this is probably a no win situation. Thanks as always for doing your best and keeping this community healthy.
- roenxi 5y ago
  There isn't a loss. There is nothing wrong with adding some sass to the comment if the moderator hat comes off. It'd be unreasonable to expect him to turn a blind eye to a situation where he has more at stake and better information than 80% of the comments. Dan's opinion is only different from the average HN commentor because it leads to people being banned. As long as there is a careful separation of personal opinion from an official moderator view there isn't anything to take note of from one personal opinion.
  - bebop 5y ago
    I meant more that no matter what was said, someone would take offense.
garmaine 5y ago
You could just say “As there is a conflict of interest, I will not comment on the substance of this tweet.”
- dang 5y ago
  But that's not the reason and wouldn't be true. There's another aspect too: I try to avoid being a bloodless ghoul in communicating with this community. People here don't want stiff corporate pantomimes, and that suits me fine, because I would hate to do that; or rather I can't because my body would reject it. That's an old Willie Brown line btw.
  - hutrdvnj 5y ago
    I would like to hear the other side of the story. I understand that dang is not the best person to tell us, but maybe there's someone else?
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Are you claiming you do not have a conflict of interest here?
    - dang 5y ago
      No not at all. I'm saying that it's not the reason why I couldn't comment further. The conflict of interest (I'm not sure that's the most precise term here, but I'll go with it) is obvious, everyone's aware of it, and it doesn't normally (nor should it) stop me from sharing information with the community. HN readers are curious, generally like more information rather than less, and are smart enough to make up their own minds. And although you can call it a conflict, actually just sharing what's happening is a way to build trust with readers. The difference in this case was not any of that—it's just that it's not my call what YC does or doesn't publish about its internal affairs, so I don't get to share information like I normally would. I don't like that; my comfort zone is, like I said, to tell HN readers whatever relevant information I can and let them decide for themselves. That has worked well over the years and continues to. But other people have different jobs and need to make decisions from different perspectives.