17 ms·

An announcement about the comment section

123 points by raphlinus 5y ago

dragontamer 5y ago
"Censorship" has become incredibly tiring as a topic lately. Sure, freedom of speech is important and all, but in video game circles, if the skirt-length of a female character is increased by a few inches, you'll get a bunch of trolls calling "censorship" of said character. Case in point: Dead or Alive 6 vs 5, or Guilty Gear Strive vs Xrd. Apparently "Sony" is the big bad and is forcing developers to cover up more female characters or something. I honestly don't care but... really, this sort of thing is coming up these days. (Actually, the newest costume change was Pyra & Mythra's costumes in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, now that I think of it). Its gotten ridiculous, and I can't trust the face of these "censorship" complaints very much anymore. Its like "Censorship" is used as a complain for anything and everything these days. ----------- I think there can be a discussion about the appropriate amount of sexuality / sexiness in video game characters (especially the female characters). But as soon as the "censorship" trolls enter the discussion, its all over. Its just trolls all the way down, and the discussion dies. ------- Anyway, I realize this is completely tangential to the discussion on this particular science blog. But I'm more of a video gamer, so I'm seeing more and more of this "censorship" talk around video game sites.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  It might be tiring but it is also important. Believe or not, whatever we (people, collectively) decide to allow or disallow is very likely going to profoundly affect shape of freedom of expression for future generations.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Here's my problem. If a developer (lets say, Koei Tecmo games), decides to make a video game (such as Dead or Alive 6) slightly less sexy than a previous video game (such as Dead or Alive 5), is that "censorship" ?? Or is this a *COMPLETELY DIFFERENT* discussion, and the "censorship" trolls are just trying to cause outrage in a completely unrelated subject matter? Ditto with Nintendo and their treatment of Pyra & Mythra in Xenogears vs Smash Ultimate. Its like Smash Ultimate is aimed at a younger audience, so Nintendo wanted those characters to have slightly less sex appeal in Smash Ultimate, while having slightly more sex appeal in Xenogears. So yelling "censorship" at the top of your lungs because you don't like Pyra's tights in Smash Ultimate is just... counterproductive. (For those unaware: The original character design doesn't have tights, so she shows a bit more thigh in Xenogears. So the controversy is whether or not adding the tights to Smash Ultimate is "censorship"). -------- That's the thing about "censorship". Its outrage trolling these days. You yell censorship not to make a point or to move the discussion forward. You yell it to close off the discussion and derail it. Its a troll move, not really about discussing underlying issues.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      No, making your game slightly less sexy is not censorship if it was your own choice. If you decide not to say something, this is not impinging on your freedom of speech, it is you using your freedom to make that decision. Some people call this self-censorship which I do not count as censorship. When I decide not to talk politics at the office or at home party that might be self-censorship but in reality is my own choice. Yes, censoring trolls that say vaccines are harmful is still censorship, regardless of how sure you feel about being right. Understand that any idea had to start at some point with a single person or small number of people. Women demanding their right to vote, it had to start somewhere. It also means everybody else was of another opinion. Suppressing speech, beliefs, just because you don't agree with them risks to cut those movements before they have ability to gain traction and in effect slow human progress.
      - vorpalhex 5y ago
        Self-censorship is censorship. If you know stating some position (I support candidate X) is going to result in being harassed, death threats or other injury and you choose to not engage in speech, that is still being censored.
        lmilcin 5y ago
        You made decision to not get involved in the conflict. That's not censorship. Have others been allowed to state that position? Has some body tried to suppress that speech? If yes, then they (but not you) have been subject to censorship.
        vorpalhex 5y ago
        I was trying to remember the name for this when I wrote the original comment, and now I recall it. A chilling effect. It started as a legal concept but it applies to censorship as well. It's sufficient to count as censorship if you simply punish legal speech sufficiently that the populace self-censors. [1]: https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/897/chilling-effect https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/897/chilling-effect
  - AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
    Possibly. But I think most of us would rather pick another hill to die on than deciding that removing visible cleavage on a hyper-sexualized 13 year-old is "censorship".[0] [0] https://kotaku.com/xenoblade-chronicles-xs-director-on-localization-change-1796157409 https://kotaku.com/xenoblade-chronicles-xs-director-on-local...
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      You are not forced to comment on a HN post dedicating to censoring comments if you "would rather pick another hill to die on".
    - Jiro 5y ago
      No Japanese creator is going to reply "well, I would rather that the company that pays my salary not censor me", unless they have such star power that they know they can say this with no repercussions, so I'm skeptical of such claims. Not to mention that Japanese creators often don't know much about a problem other than what the company tells them. If Nintendo tells them "we need to do this or people in the West won't buy it," the creator will believe them, and say that they don't mind the censorship because it's necessary, even if Nintendo is lying through their teeth when they say that.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        Nintendo is a bad example actually, because a lot of the "sexy" games are moving to Nintendo Switch and away from Sony PS4/PS5.
- FriendlyNormie 5y ago
  Thank you for your completely irrelevant rant about a totally different definition and context of “censorship” that has nothing to do with censoring comments or speech which you somehow use as your entire justification for dismissing complaints involving that. You. Fucking. Retard.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  I'm sure you already know this, but that is not censorship. By definition, censorship is done by a government or some other outside entity. In the case of video games, it's the companies themselves making these changes to make them more marketable. TLDR: Capital G Gamers are idiots.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    > Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. Censorship can be self imposed, eg Hollywood. And please don't throw ad hominem attacks at groups of people. Not only are you incorrect but it's childish.
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    > By definition, censorship is done by a government or some other outside entity That's not the definition of censorship - by definition, the video game maker in that case chose to self-censor. It's debatable whether or not that was a stupid decision or a wise decision, but there's no other word to describe it.
- kbelder 5y ago
  I hate it when companies do this, and they've been doing it a lot recently. I think my irritation comes from the fact that they're not doing it to make their customers happier with their product; they're doing it to avoid a storm of controversy from people who in large part aren't their customers. They have the right to do it, I understand it, and I might do the same in their place, because who wants a twitterstorm against their new product? But it's still annoying.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    In the case of DOA6, it was before the alleged Sony "censorship" rumors of recent years. So keep that in mind, DOA6 was released a couple of years ago. The DOA6 example is almost entirely a case where Koei Tecmo wanted to be taken "more seriously" as an eSports game. Now maybe you can argue that "eSports players don't play Dead or Alive", and only "casual players looking for sexiness play Dead or Alive". But... I know that's not true either. Some of my friends who were into fighting games were "serious" about their Dead or Alive combos / practice regiments / matchups / etc. etc. There are plenty of serious players in that group. On the one hand: you got the "casuals" who pay $1000 for hundreds of costumes (Dead or Alive 5 was very famous for its DLC costumes). "eSports" players didn't do this, because they were more focused on the combo practice rather than playing dress-up with these characters. (In contrast, the players who did find the characters sexy, probably did play "dress up" more often and were into buying these costume packs). Frankly: its not a clear cut case. I could very well see Koei Tecmo wanting to appeal to the eSports players, hoping that it'd propel their game to newer heights in the "serious" eSports ring (ex: Marvel vs Capcom 3 / Street Fighter 4). Furthermore, the "casual" audience argued that they deserved more influence than the eSport ambitions BECAUSE they spent all of this money on DLC costumes with no in-game effect aside from "playing dress up". --------- In contrast, Bandai's "Soul Calibur" series never really had this issue. Soul Calibur can remain "sexy costume / dressup" for casuals, because Bandai's "serious" esports game was Tekken. (And while Soul Calibur's "serious" players definitely held side tournaments, they were always seen as 2nd class citizens compared to Tekken at the eSports events). --------- Nintendo's "Smash Ultimate" example is kinda funny, because its clear that Nintendo doesn't really want Smash Ultimate to be an eSports title (despite it taking up a big eSports following). Nintendo's eSports ambitions are Pokken Tournament (Pokemon fighting game) and Splatoon. Despite not wanting to be an eSports title, Nintendo clearly is aiming the game at younger audiences, so various characters are a bit more covered up in Smash Ultimate (ex: Bayonetta, Pyra, etc. etc.)
- ttt0 5y ago
  What I find weird in our current status quo is how "sex work" and having an OnlyFans account is considered empowering, but a game about fictional characters like DOA is considered sexist and misogynist. I never played it, so I might be wrong, but isn't that why people play DOA in the first place? To see sexy women? So how's that trolling?
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > I never played it, so I might be wrong, but isn't that why people play DOA in the first place? To see sexy women? So how's that trolling? There's a fair number of players who were hoping that DOA would become an esport: akin to Marvel vs Capcom 3, Street Fighter 4, or Smash Ultimate. There's a discussion that must be had about DOA's excessive "sexiness" and whether or not that is hurting it from becoming a mainstream esports game. DOA 6 focused on the "cinematography", which caused an outrage because their fans wanted more emphasis on the sex-appeal (which was absolutely the focus of DOA2 through DOA5: "boob physics" was front and center in a lot of marketing) Now don't get me wrong, the discussion should be had. But... this isn't about censorship at all. This discussion ultimately comes down to the skirt length and bust size of Kasumi / Marie Rose (and other characters). To derail the discussion by yelling "censorship" is unnecessary, and unhelpful hyperbole.
  - slg 5y ago
    >What I find weird in our current status quo is how "sex work" and having an OnlyFans account is considered empowering, but a game about fictional characters like DOA is considered sexist and misogynist. The difference is consent. A person is free to objectify themselves and doing so can be empowering. A person should be extremely cautious about creating fiction to objectify a group of people to which the author does not belong as this can be exploitative and have societal repercussions. I know next to nothing about the developers for the DOA franchise, but I am guessing there would be less controversy if the studio had a larger female presence.
    - ttt0 5y ago
      What consent? We're talking about fictional characters here. Is Dwarf Fortress an immoral game, because the authors are not a part of groups like dwarfs, elves and goblins? And some in-game events may occur without the consent of those characters? edit: Got rate limited for some reason and can no longer respond, so I'm just going to edit this post: What does the "consent from the group" even mean? Do you have to make a poll, write to the CEO of Women™ or something? Seriously. Can I even include women if I'm making an amateur video game as a one-man effort (no pun intended), and I myself am not a woman? And for dragontamer, I guess you got your answer. I don't personally care about video games at all, but some people believe this is immoral and rape-like (no consent), so it's not surprising to me that someone calls it censorship and points out the parallels to back when people tried to censor violence in video games and whatnot. edit2: > You are free to make whatever game you want. The public is free to respond to your game however they want. You aren't going to get many complaints if you "even include women". If you objectify those women, you might get met with those complaints. If you were a women objectify women, you can at least claim that your are taking control of the objectification. That is viewed as a valid excuse by a lot of people much like how I mentioned people in a minority group are generally allowed to make jokes at that groups expense. So I should take it as roughly "the consent from the group means that the group isn't going to cancel you"? But if that's the case then why is it called "consent"? Isn't the entire point of consent to ask before you take action? It's like saying "I'm going to force you to have sex with me, if you don't go to the police then it means you consented to it". And from my understanding that's literally what rape culture is.
- alisonatwork 5y ago
  I think the complaint of "censorship" might have some basis if the reason why the company changed the character models is to comply with obscenity laws in the most conservative country in which that particular game will be distributed. There is a case to be made that in a world where creators sell their content globally, conservative regions with a lot of potential customers might influence content that ends up also being sold in liberal regions. This might not be censorship, exactly, but it is an annoying side-effect of a globalized information economy. Instead of the world opening up and becoming more liberal, it might actually end up becoming more conservative, if transnational corporations decide that catering to the lowest common denominator is a more profitable route. I suppose the workaround for consumers is the same as it is for movies - to avoid the content designed to appeal to the broadest audience, and seek out indie creators who are still willing to cater to a more local or specialized audience. In the mean time, I do think it's fair for consumers to advocate for generally more liberal themes in games, although I'm not sure the sexiness of an outfit is really the hill to die on.
kstrauser 5y ago
Every bit of this is great, but I especially liked: > To the people who have been abusing the system: you are of course free to have your own opinions, and you are free to express them on your own site or anywhere else that will have you, but this is a warning notice. Do what you like but don’t do it here. You are free to contribute your thoughts on other topics if you honestly have something to add or some question to ask, but any sign of attempted pandemic flaming will be deleted as quickly as I see it. Go away and tell everyone that Big Pharma muzzled you, if that makes you feel better. But in the end, you’re already going to be the last people standing after the vaccines wipe the rest of us out, right? Isn’t that enough? I think that's the proper take. No one's denying anyone's right to express their opinion. They're just not providing a platform for factually incorrect ones.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  trolls obviously know this. they want the audience that comes from posting on a high traffic website. Posting your opinions on ramdomguydog. blogspot.com does not deliver much audience.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    I fully agree that they want to use the prestige of the trusted website's name on their rants. I think a lot of people genuinely believe that they're owed a soapbox, though.
    - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
      The type of person who only speaks, never listens/reads.
robbyking 5y ago
In my opinion, this is absolutely the right way to go. I know it's a completely different field, but I moderate a fairly large mountain biking forum, and I often have to remove comments that recommend techniques that could result in injury or death. It's often new riders who find that Technique B works better for them than Technique A, but they don't have the experience to understand why Technique B is dangerous. I can't imagine how much worse it must be in Dr. Lowe's field.
- sneak 5y ago
  Deleting those comments doesn't help the comment poster (or others) know why Technique B is dangerous, or inoculate them from hearing about Technique B later and using it without knowing the danger. We shouldn't pretend poisons don't exist, we should label them with warnings.
  - 8note 5y ago
    They should not show up before the warning, and not at all in a recommendation thread. There should be a specific thread about poison
  - ketzo 5y ago
    Okay, but if we're not able to label every single one (because we don't have the time/resources/ability to do so), we should probably still remove them, no? Better removed than unlabeled, as nice as a label might be.
    - r00fus 5y ago
      Didn't slashdot solve this like 20 years ago? Have moderation keys (+1 insightful, -1 redundant but maybe retooled to your audience/domain) and let the users moderate and have 2nd (even more trusted users) and 3rd level moderation (site owner) to moderate those moderations. It's like bureaucracy for moderation.
  - marcinzm 5y ago
    >We shouldn't pretend poisons don't exist, we should label them with warnings. We also shouldn't put them in the fridge next to the bottle of coke no matter how well labeled.
SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
Sounds like the author should have a chat with dang and compare notes.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  dang would tell him to have a feature to grey out troll comments
  - f38zf5vdt 5y ago
    And when you find someone disagreeable, just give them the old "You're posting too fast, please slow down."
    - ttt0 5y ago
      Yeah, what's going on with this? If I did something wrong then just warn me first, because it comes out of nowhere and I have no idea what the hell is going on. How does it even work? Is it triggered automatically or what? Hey dang, you mind explaining this?
      - f38zf5vdt 5y ago
        https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/issues/21 https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/issues... It's not totally clear about how this works. It looks like I've been shadowbanned from making new posts at least temporarily, since when I tried to make a new post yesterday I was met with this error despite making no posts yesterday. I am not sure what the goal is. I already hit 500 so I've got the downvote, but maybe there's more rights and privileges that they want to keep me from obtaining with a higher upvote count?
- raphlinus 5y ago
  That's a large part of the reason I posted it. The situations are not exactly parallel though. Derek's blog is his space, and he absolutely has a right to curate it as he wishes, though in the past a laissez-faire approach has worked. I found this interesting for a few other reasons as well. It's a pretty solid data point that discourse around Covid is worse than around other scientific topics. Also, there are suggestions that a small number of people are purposefully stirring up shit (the fact that they didn't take hints that their mode of discourse was not welcome). I'm sure the same dynamic is at play on HN as well. Ultimately, we have to come up with strategies to deal with this. I'm hopeful that Derek's approach will work for his small (but excellent) corner of the Internet.
xhkkffbf 5y ago
Obviously we've had plenty of discussions about censorships and online fora and I've got nothing to add there. But does this strike anyone as specifically anti-science? If science is a process that's continually open to revision and re-examination, it seems like claiming a right to ban wrongthink goes directly against that part of the philosophy. What good is it to claim to be evidence-based if you also claim the ability to censor evidence that you've decided, a priori, that doesn't fit your desired narrative? I mean it's one thing to allow political discussions to be moderated but it seems like science claims a particular philosophy that must be open to challenge, right?
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  I disagree, mostly on the grounds that it takes very little effort to challenge something, and a lot more effort to correctly respond to that challenge. Honestly, I'm curious what you think a solution might be that would respect this basic fact of argumentation.
  - godshatter 5y ago
    I'm not the person you're replying to, but I too have wondered about this. The only thing I can come up with is that it takes a lot less effort not to reply to the challenge. The urge to prove someone wrong is the other side of the coin for the trolling problem. People wouldn't fish if others didn't take the bait.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    It takes quite a bit of effort to credibly challenge something, unless there's a serious, obvious flaw in the methods or evidence supporting the original claim (that's what peer review is supposed to catch).
- aliasEli 5y ago
  Yes, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  If the commenters are looking to do science, they can publish their own studies. If they're looking to argue science, They can start their own blog. They aren't being censored or silenced. They're just being removed from a personal blog.
cousin_it 5y ago
I don't think content creators should be in the business of providing a "platform" to anyone but themselves. Ideally, commenting should be decentralized: if you want to comment on someone's post P, write a post on your site and mark it as a comment on P. Comment filtering should also be decentralized: if you want to see a filtered view of comments on someone's post (for example, only polite comments), run a filter in your browser, tuned to show you only polite comments. All filters only on receiving of information, and controlled only by the receiver of information. Nobody's filter should ever stomp on anyone else's right to receive information.
- zatertip 5y ago
  Always refreshing to come to the technobro website to get the technobro take on how to solve a social problem with technical means.
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    What they're describing is precisely the model most bloggers wanted for comments in the early days of blogging (late 90s & early 2000s). Trackbacks, pingbacks, etc. and other protocols were devised to allow bloggers to reply to each other with posts and aggregate them all together. It's not some 'technobro' solution, it's a way to publish content without incurring all of the real costs of also publishing (and managing) discussion forums or comment sections. It unfortunately never really took off because Facebook came in and became the defacto platform for people to post and comment on things--essentially becoming a giant ad-funded discussion forum moderated by Facebook staff and volunteers.
    - gerikson 5y ago
      Comment sections on big WP and Movable type blogs were a thing when Facebook was still growing. The march has been towards continued centralization. Disqus offered to offload busywork for bloggers - spam, identification etc. The "indieweb" is trying to bring back pingbacks etc.
    - JoshTriplett 5y ago
qbasic_forever 5y ago
I've noticed a good model for discourse online is when people have to pay a small amount to be part of the group. The comments on a $1/month patreon are an order of magnitude better than in a free-for-all subreddit for example. Some places can buck this trend but it usually requires a huge burden and dedicated moderation staff (which doesn't come for free).
- papito 5y ago
  A tiny barrier of entry increases the quality of participators by a huge amount. Show me a thing that has not been defiled by opening it wide to the horror that is the average intelligence. Twitter and Facebook is a dumpster fire, ultimately destroying political discourse and locking almost half of the population in a dangerous alternate reality. They now turned violent and will continue to do so. Masses of hodlers are now destabilizing markets with their GME raids and crypto. Etc...
- freddie_mercury 5y ago
  I agree with you but I've been astounded at how many people I've seen paying for Substack subscriptions apparently for the sole purpose of disagreeing with everything single thing written by the author, often in not very polite ways that end up getting them banned.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    Maybe it filters for the people who reeeally want to disagree with the author.
- alisonatwork 5y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. Although it is true that comment politeness appears to improve behind a paywall, I also find that the diversity of opinion decreases, which tends to make the comments less interesting to read in the first place.
- 5y ago
adharmad 5y ago
"Go away and tell everyone that Big Pharma muzzled you, if that makes you feel better. But in the end, you’re already going to be the last people standing after the vaccines wipe the rest of us out, right? Isn’t that enough?" :-)
barbazoo 5y ago
I wish sites would just disable commenting altogether, at least on certain topics. That's what CBC up here does on anything that's in any way related to race, gender, climate, first nations, etc.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  > CBC The Canadian Broadcasting Company: https://cbc.ca https://cbc.ca While it's a TV station, and a set of radio stations, they also provide a news website. > up here That would be Canada. Like Americans, many of us assume we're talking to Americans when writing online.
- prawn 5y ago
  I've run a sports forum for almost 20 years. For 18 years of that, it was with no-registration-required to post. There are methods and wordlists to discourage spamming and shadowbanning, but it was surprisingly tolerable all things considered. In recent years, anything pertaining to race or pandemic has been an absolute shitshow from local commenters and foreign agitators, but both are occasionally relevant to the forum (sports events being postponed or moved, etc) so I've been reluctant to can them completely. I eventually switched to registration-required, but in a way that no one noticed. But the other feature I added was flagging particular conversations as requiring a higher privilege level to post. Regular contributors can request a privilege upgrade to participate. This has helped.
- motogpjimbo 5y ago
  The BBC News website similarly disables comments on any article that's even remotely controversial. While some would undoubtedly consider that a good thing to protect the quality of the conversation, I'm not so sure myself. UK citizens are forced by law to fund the BBC through what is effectively a tax on television ownership. In addition, the BBC's takes on certain issues are known to be quite out of step with the feelings of the majority of the UK population. Allowing the BBC to selectively disable comments on such articles, which are forcibly funded by the people who might like to comment on them, seems wrong on some level. I'd rather the BBC removed commenting across the entire site than have the power to remove comments on specific articles they know are going to result in disagreement.
crazydoggers 5y ago
Hear, hear! Now we just need HN to follow suit. There’s nothing wrong with editorializing comment sections. Not every comment section on the web needs to encourage voices from every side in the name of free speech. I think websites perhaps should start to create “comment section covenant” that outline how subjects are handled. Ie No ad hominem No misinformation No conspiracies All comments failing will be deleted Etc etc
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  I agree, anyone pushing against our free speech rights should be censored! Sarcasm aside, there is no man fit to play the censor. Real life is too complex to oblige by naive rules.
  - crazydoggers 5y ago
    > Real life is too complex to oblige by naive rules. The comment section of a website is not real life. You don’t have “rights” here, you’re allowed to use the site according to its terms. The servers, this site are private property, and the owners get to set the rules. So it’s not playing censor, it’s editorializing. You’re free to comment other places. I can and will choose sites that moderate voices that I don’t want to deal with. You can say that, “we’ll, this will cause silos”, but this experiment of everyone making any comments they want and everyone having to listen is a failure. It has only further divided people because the internet comment section is not the place to convert and educate people, so people just get more entrenched. You’re unlikely to be swayed by this comment for example. I for one am tired of it. I want comment sections that deal with people of a certain educational level, intelligence, and point of view. I don’t want to deal with incels, psychopaths, people without formal education etc. If you think internet comments are a right and moderating them is censorship, then yes, I want your comments gone from the sites I want to use and where I go to have conversations with intelligent people.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      So you want an echo chamber? I mean, that's fine if that's your goal but at least be direct. Also realize echo chambers are bad - they reinforce opinions on an identity basis, not a truth basis. Censorship can still happen on private property. That does not, per se, determine right or wrong. Nobody objects that kids websites don't allow pornography. We can also still object to censorship, even if it's on private property. You don't have some a right to be immune to criticism.
allochthon 5y ago
One of the hard problems of comment sections and forums is ad hom, incivility and lack of decorum. In cases of trolling and borderline behavior, it seems fine to just ban the offenders if there's a signup process. It would be nice to see more consensus around this. There's something to be said for freedom of speech when considered in context, but the manner of expressing oneself is largely orthogonal to what is said and has a lot of bearing on whether a conversation thread is fruitful or painful for the participants. It seems to me that in most cases a collaborative search for truth doesn't need to be painful.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  The ones making the loudest arguments for civility though are usually the trolls. Normal people get irritated at them, lose their patience and tell them to fuck off and trolls love using civility as a club in return.
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  This all comes back to Dunbar's number[0]. When ape cultures grow to large, eventually there is a dispute and you get a tribal split. Some of the tribe sticks with the original leader, some move to the new tribe. Researchers have found that this is related to neocortex size, and that if you take human's neocortex size you would reach tribes of 150. Article comment sections are tribes. If those tribes get to be beyond 150, you reach natural tribal splits, but with no way to actually split. Hacker News comment sections are a tribe. Sub-reddits are tribes. We're all fighting Dunbar's Number. We're all going against the grain. Incivility is guaranteed. Other than going to a smaller website or creating another sub-reddit, I do not know of a single community that actually takes Dunbar into account. And even if such a comment website was created, then we get the opposite problem. If we segregate everyone to their own perfect 150 person tribes, then we get bubbles! We get the antivax tribe feeding their own biases with no checks. So not only do you need tribes, but you need to find "model tribes" that the other tribes can look up to. So you need tribal networks as you wouldn't want to centrally control that. It might be a good idea, that when speaking outside of your tribe, you are communicating not as yourself but for your tribe. So people don't see allochthon talking, they see Hacker News talking. If your tribe did not back the comment, they could decide to hide it themselves. If you don't agree with that, that might incite a tribal split. If other tribes decided they didn't like that comment, they would down-vote your entire tribe. Being part of an elite tribe might be a signal of social status in much the same way that historic Venice Coffee houses and the conversations and inspiration that came from then led the Art world. And as each tribe is small, each person within the tribe is personally accountable. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
temp8964 5y ago
I agree the author can choose whatever model of discussion he wants. But I don't think the commenters he referred to are "trolls". Those commenters are people who hold their (maybe stupid) opinions and try very hard to convince others. Even though they seem to create inflammatory wars, maybe that's not their intention. Some of them can be civil and they truly believe what they say. They are just stubborn and unwelcomed by the host. But I think "troll" means something else. Surely most authors don't like this kind of commenters. What is different is the nature of the blog, which is focused on medicine. This seems to make the alternative views on the issues kind of harmful to the society. And the author has more reason to ban them. But honestly, I don't believe any doctor in the U.S. comes to the comments section to get prescription advices.
- gerikson 5y ago
  Poe's law tells us that a parody of a viewpoint is essentially indistinguishable from a sincerely held viewpoint. The best trolls are the ones who are playing true believers.
  - TheFreim 5y ago
    > The best trolls are the ones who are playing true believers. I think the best trolls are true believers who know how to not take their own views seriously. This gives them the ability to not only screw with you but also at various points make actual real points about things. The mixing and matching of reality, perceived or real, with content designed to anger and upset makes for a recipe for anger and annoyance.
wyattjoh 5y ago
Quite a good analogy by The Coral Project[0] on similar problems faced by other organizations with comment sections on their sites https://guides.coralproject.net/the-empty-box/ https://guides.coralproject.net/the-empty-box/ Edit: Adding this other source for some more deep details https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01119 https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01119 [0]: https://coralproject.net/ https://coralproject.net/
iNane9000 5y ago
If you want to make a website, that’s your right in our free market system. If you want to allow the public to post on your website, to add value to your product, again that’s your right. If it benefits your business, then you should do it. You can even moderate the comments to the point your website is inherently fraudulent. That’s your right as it stands today. So to lament how one can’t get only good comments, which disagree with your views only when your views are wrong, and then write long essays about how certain people will not comment the way you want them to, doesn’t seem very practical. I’ve been reading troll comments, and many non troll but equally destructive and yet clearly well intentioned comments, for decades and that won’t change as long as the internet is free. Accept that freedom or don’t try to profit from it in the first place. Write books instead of blogs.
PaulHoule 5y ago
The gangs who are promoting coronavirus comment spam create two kinds of victims. (1) are the people whose free speech is impaired by relentless toxic comments (2) are the posters themselves who will be increasingly isolated by their behavior and feeling persecuted. It is like the cult member who is driven into evangelism not to recruit new members but to become convinced that the outside world is corrupt. These will become increasingly radicalized and over the next few years will be recruited into more violent attacks and other forms of exploitation such as spending their income on scam alt-health supplements. The most difficult problem in all of this is the the type (2) victims and many observers will insist that their disingenuous communications be taken at face value which is absolutely exhausting for the the type (1) victims who really ought so say that we don't want to hear about their dog pills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGAqYNFQdZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGAqYNFQdZ4
xoa 5y ago
This post is as good a time as any to rant a bit about an extremely frustratingly and commonly forgotten bit of Free Speech: freedom of speech and association absolutely includes the freedom to NOT say or associate with something! It's both a positive and a negative right. This seems like it should be rather intuitive. If someone points a gun at my head and demands I put up a sign support XYZ message on my property, is it not obvious that would violate my free speech rights? By the same token, my choosing to support a single message or limited set of messages, be it for a candidate, cause, or anything else, necessarily means my choosing to NOT support an infinite number of others (and most particularly messages contrary to the one(s) I support). And this is one case where it makes absolutely zero difference that the message is on my blog or website vs my lawn or the side of my barn. It is the essence of Free Speech that each person may direct their resources towards content-specific messages subjectively. So when Derek Lowe, or Hacker News, or Reddit or YouTube for that matter delete a comment, ban someone, or any other such action they're not censoring, they are ENGAGING in Free Speech. People are free to put out their own soap boxes and argue their cases before the public should they wish. But they don't have a right to other people's private property nor to an audience, and in fact that would be completely contrary to freedom. The point of Free Speech is as a system to hopefully edge closer to truth and react to changing evidence, circumstances and societal shifts by keeping arguments and reactions within the realms of social, economic, and political consequences. Not force. >but I don’t like it on principle, either. He has nothing to apologize for. Banning people and deleting comments from his own soap box is itself part of the essence of Freedom of Speech. Everyone may react, and he can react to their reactions, and so on and so forth in a never ending dynamic system, all secure in that nobody may ever legally put a permanent end to the debate with violence. Yet for some reason a lot of otherwise very smart people have allowed a certain class of parasites, misanthropes, malicious/opportunistic authoritarians, and the lazy to make them feel bad about exercising their speech rights and even try to turn that back around on them. What's truly been worrying is to see that leak into the mainstream Republican Party, one of the two big American coalitions. The blatancy of the anti-Free Speech laws they're now passing at the state level is fairly horrifying. EDIT: In an interesting bit of timing, arguments were just made in NetChoice v. Moody regarding a preliminary injunction against the recent Florida law attempting to state regulate speech in networked spaces (unless you own a theme park). A number of different lawyers live followed it on twitter if anyone is interested [0, 1 amongst others]. Directly relevant to this discussion though. EDIT 2: FWIW courts have faced these cases before, and for anyone interested in reading more on the legal side of things, a term to get you started in searches for court cases is "editorial discretion" and the exercise thereof, which were frequently fought in the realm of newspapers. An example covering some of this would be Wisconsin Association of Nursing Homes, Inc. v. Journal Co. (1979). Editorial discretion is a core function of speech, since often choosing what not to say is at least as important as what to say. ---- 0: https://twitter.com/AriCohn/status/1409563991974817800 https://twitter.com/AriCohn/status/1409563991974817800 1: https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1409562758291599362 https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/140956275829159936...
Huwyt_Nashi047 5y ago
I don't particularly mind censorship, I acknowledge that it's a privilege that comes with power, but the attitude of these people is something else. They are cowards. They don't own it, they act like their hand is being forced. It's always "a shame it's come to this". It's never their responsibility, it's always the fault of those they disagree with. Unlike this current progressive/Zionist hegemony, I can't think of any powerful right/White/conservative movement that has acted in such an underhanded way towards its enemies. We own it. We ban and condemn, and tell you exactly why. When we censor, we are proud to censor, because we know it's right. Either these people don't feel the same, or they're deliberately antagonistic.
afrcnc 5y ago
If news sites know what's good for them, they should be disabling the comments section asap
- freetime2 5y ago
  Why would disabling the comments section be good for them? Doesn’t commenting increase engagement? Also - aren’t we in the comments section of a news site right now? Are you suggesting that HN should disable comments?
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    HN, despite the "N", isn't really a news site in the most commonly used sense: A site that is an originator of news. HN is... not something there is a specific word for. Something like "mostly community-driven news aggregation & discussion forum about technology or something else if enough people think it's interesting." That's a bit long, maybe an acronym would work better: MCDNADFATSEEPTII.
    - krapp 5y ago
      "content aggregator" or "news aggregator."
    - freetime2 5y ago
      What is fundamentally different about the comment section on HN vs. an originator of news, though? We read news stories (or the headline at least), and we jump into the comments section to share our thoughts with each other. I mean, subjectively I would say that HN is a much better community than most news sites - but I'm clearly biased here and I'm sure there are many people who would disagree with me that the HN comments section holds any value. How do you feel about a site like Ars Technica, which is an originator of news and also has a very active forum and comments section? I personally disagree with a lot of the comments (and perhaps more importantly, the style of commenting) on that site and regret it almost every time I browse into the comments, but I wouldn't say it is Ars' best interest to shut the comments down. I think they probably get a lot additional ad impressions, premium subscribers, etc. from people who interact with the comments. And if it's just a difference in the quality of the comments - is the correct course of action for news sites to disable comments, or work to improve them through moderation, UX, etc? Not trying to be nit-picky here btw, I genuinely did not understand the basis for the parent's comment that "If news sites know what's good for them, they should be disabling the comments section asap".
musicale 5y ago
Usually "an announcement about the comment section" means "we're disabling comments entirely." So I was pleasantly surprised that it's just moderation.
mianos 5y ago
At least it is somewhat civilised. The comment section of the newspapers down here in Australia now how the lowest signal to noise ratio I have ever seen on a forum in my life and I am old, first using BBSs in the early 80s. Almost every comment is completely senseless with by far the majority blaming every issue, related or otherwise in the article directly on the prime minister or his party.
- prawn 5y ago
  It has to be seen to be believed. I used to play a game of trying to guess the gripe or dispute unfolding based on the article, but was always surprised when I reached the footer at the level of idiocy. I generally suspected that a good deal of it was agitators associated with the two major parties, acting as random people and trying to start/steer conversation to maintain talking points. Either way, I've never seen a single comment or discussion worth reading at all on something like Adelaide Now/The Advertiser. Quite the achievement.
- mabub24 5y ago
  It's similar on a lot of Canadian newspapers. The real interesting comments come out when they forget to turn off comments on a youtube video. Some news services, like the CBC, now just turn off comments on certain topics because the comments simply added zero value, often detracting from the stories like a kind of intellectual blackhole sucking any reason out of the air.
freetime2 5y ago
> I will be deleting whatever I feel are tendentious comments meant to keep the coronavirus arguments going I think it would be better if this post included some guidelines about what constitutes acceptable vs. unacceptable content. I don't doubt that he is dealing with a lot of trolls/non-scientific nonsense, and I understand that he is well within his rights to delete anything he wants, but "whatever I feel are tendentious comments meant to keep the coronavirus arguments going" comes across as a bit too subjective for my tastes and would undermine my confidence in a forum. Note I don't participate in the comments on that site, so this doesn't impact me personally at all. I just feel like if you need to implement censorship, you should try to keep it as objective as possible.
- andrewflnr 5y ago
  You might have a point for an actual "forum", but this is his personal blog, and comments exist at all there at his personal pleasure. Your confidence in it doesn't matter, nor does any other reader's. The only consequence to someone "losing confidence" in his personal moderation style is that they don't comment anymore, which is fine at worst, more likely exactly the goal. Further, objectivity is impossible in moderation. There are no shortcuts, some judgment is always required or your "objective" rules will be gamed to death. Acknowledging the subjectivity is exactly the right approach. I think this is the future of "forums" as well. Moderation depends on trust, so we'll be more explicit about who we're trusting, and just roll with it. Best case we get multiple moderation perspectives on a decentralized discussion mechanism. But if we just get used to the idea that forums are shaped by the personalities of their moderators, that's probably an improvement.
  - freetime2 5y ago
    > this is his personal blog, and comments exist at all there at his personal pleasure. Your confidence in it doesn't matter, nor does any other reader's. This is a fairly nihilistic take. Lots of people do things for greater purpose than "personal pleasure". I don't know if this particular blogger cares about earning peoples' confidence or not - but I do think it's something that many bloggers/moderators care deeply about. > Further, objectivity is impossible in moderation. Absolute objectivity may be an impossible ideal, but I don't think that means we should completely give up on objectivity. Look at the US legal system - which aims to bring as much fairness and objectivity as possible to the extremely subjective process of criminal justice. A written code of laws, trial by peers, appeals system, etc. It's very far from ideal, and yet worlds better than if we just gave up completely and said "objectivity is impossible", and let the judge issue whatever verdict and sentence at whim. We see analogs of these checks and balances on popular forums, such as upvotes/downvotes (trial by peers) and community guidelines (written code of laws). To be clear I am not suggesting every blogger should go and try to replicate all of the checks and balances of the US legal system to moderate their blogs. But I do think that something as simple as posting a set of guidelines, and referring back to them regularly when people step out of line, can be a good way to set the tone for a community. Something similar to the HN guidelines, which I think are pretty good [1]. I'm also not implying that Derek Lowe is by any means obligated to write out a set of guidelines for my or anyone else's benefit. Just sharing my opinion of what could have made this a more informative blog post - for anyone who cares to read (and of course disagree). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
javajosh 5y ago
Reading posts like this make me so grateful for good moderation, and for not being responsible for nurturing and protecting an online community, because it sounds far more difficult than it should be. As a technologist it seems like we want a high-tech solution (and I'm surprised that AI-driven moderation isn't mentioned more in the discussion; it seems to me you could accomplish a lot with sentiment analysis plus other heuristics like account age and activity). But another thought is to treat trolling itself as a disease to be modeled as a diffusion process, infecting previously good actors and tempting them into trolling behavior themselves. Its remarkable how fragile communities are in the face of even one or two determined malefactors! The OP's sensible approach feels like a kind of vaccination itself, in that it should slow the rate of reinfection such that while it won't eliminate trolling entirely, it will keep the inevitable outbreaks small and localized and not self-sustaining. But, sheesh, what a PITA. Is anyone working on automating the distracting/annoying/frustrating task of internet forum moderation?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

123 points by raphlinus 5y ago

"Censorship" has become incredibly tiring as a topic lately. Sure, freedom of speech is important and all, but in video game circles, if the skirt-length of a female character is increased by a few inches, you'll get a bunch of trolls calling "censorship" of said character. Case in point: Dead or Alive 6 vs 5, or Guilty Gear Strive vs Xrd. Apparently "Sony" is the big bad and is forcing developers to cover up more female characters or something. I honestly don't care but... really, this sort of thing is coming up these days. (Actually, the newest costume change was Pyra & Mythra's costumes in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, now that I think of it). Its gotten ridiculous, and I can't trust the face of these "censorship" complaints very much anymore. Its like "Censorship" is used as a complain for anything and everything these days. ----------- I think there can be a discussion about the appropriate amount of sexuality / sexiness in video game characters (especially the female characters). But as soon as the "censorship" trolls enter the discussion, its all over. Its just trolls all the way down, and the discussion dies. ------- Anyway, I realize this is completely tangential to the discussion on this particular science blog. But I'm more of a video gamer, so I'm seeing more and more of this "censorship" talk around video game sites.

lmilcin 5y ago
It might be tiring but it is also important. Believe or not, whatever we (people, collectively) decide to allow or disallow is very likely going to profoundly affect shape of freedom of expression for future generations.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Here's my problem. If a developer (lets say, Koei Tecmo games), decides to make a video game (such as Dead or Alive 6) slightly less sexy than a previous video game (such as Dead or Alive 5), is that "censorship" ?? Or is this a *COMPLETELY DIFFERENT* discussion, and the "censorship" trolls are just trying to cause outrage in a completely unrelated subject matter? Ditto with Nintendo and their treatment of Pyra & Mythra in Xenogears vs Smash Ultimate. Its like Smash Ultimate is aimed at a younger audience, so Nintendo wanted those characters to have slightly less sex appeal in Smash Ultimate, while having slightly more sex appeal in Xenogears. So yelling "censorship" at the top of your lungs because you don't like Pyra's tights in Smash Ultimate is just... counterproductive. (For those unaware: The original character design doesn't have tights, so she shows a bit more thigh in Xenogears. So the controversy is whether or not adding the tights to Smash Ultimate is "censorship"). -------- That's the thing about "censorship". Its outrage trolling these days. You yell censorship not to make a point or to move the discussion forward. You yell it to close off the discussion and derail it. Its a troll move, not really about discussing underlying issues.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    No, making your game slightly less sexy is not censorship if it was your own choice. If you decide not to say something, this is not impinging on your freedom of speech, it is you using your freedom to make that decision. Some people call this self-censorship which I do not count as censorship. When I decide not to talk politics at the office or at home party that might be self-censorship but in reality is my own choice. Yes, censoring trolls that say vaccines are harmful is still censorship, regardless of how sure you feel about being right. Understand that any idea had to start at some point with a single person or small number of people. Women demanding their right to vote, it had to start somewhere. It also means everybody else was of another opinion. Suppressing speech, beliefs, just because you don't agree with them risks to cut those movements before they have ability to gain traction and in effect slow human progress.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      Self-censorship is censorship. If you know stating some position (I support candidate X) is going to result in being harassed, death threats or other injury and you choose to not engage in speech, that is still being censored.
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        You made decision to not get involved in the conflict. That's not censorship. Have others been allowed to state that position? Has some body tried to suppress that speech? If yes, then they (but not you) have been subject to censorship.
        vorpalhex 5y ago
        I was trying to remember the name for this when I wrote the original comment, and now I recall it. A chilling effect. It started as a legal concept but it applies to censorship as well. It's sufficient to count as censorship if you simply punish legal speech sufficiently that the populace self-censors. [1]: https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/897/chilling-effect https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/897/chilling-effect
- AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  Possibly. But I think most of us would rather pick another hill to die on than deciding that removing visible cleavage on a hyper-sexualized 13 year-old is "censorship".[0] [0] https://kotaku.com/xenoblade-chronicles-xs-director-on-localization-change-1796157409 https://kotaku.com/xenoblade-chronicles-xs-director-on-local...
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    You are not forced to comment on a HN post dedicating to censoring comments if you "would rather pick another hill to die on".
  - Jiro 5y ago
    No Japanese creator is going to reply "well, I would rather that the company that pays my salary not censor me", unless they have such star power that they know they can say this with no repercussions, so I'm skeptical of such claims. Not to mention that Japanese creators often don't know much about a problem other than what the company tells them. If Nintendo tells them "we need to do this or people in the West won't buy it," the creator will believe them, and say that they don't mind the censorship because it's necessary, even if Nintendo is lying through their teeth when they say that.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Nintendo is a bad example actually, because a lot of the "sexy" games are moving to Nintendo Switch and away from Sony PS4/PS5.
FriendlyNormie 5y ago
Thank you for your completely irrelevant rant about a totally different definition and context of “censorship” that has nothing to do with censoring comments or speech which you somehow use as your entire justification for dismissing complaints involving that. You. Fucking. Retard.
vlunkr 5y ago
I'm sure you already know this, but that is not censorship. By definition, censorship is done by a government or some other outside entity. In the case of video games, it's the companies themselves making these changes to make them more marketable. TLDR: Capital G Gamers are idiots.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  > Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. Censorship can be self imposed, eg Hollywood. And please don't throw ad hominem attacks at groups of people. Not only are you incorrect but it's childish.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > By definition, censorship is done by a government or some other outside entity That's not the definition of censorship - by definition, the video game maker in that case chose to self-censor. It's debatable whether or not that was a stupid decision or a wise decision, but there's no other word to describe it.
kbelder 5y ago
I hate it when companies do this, and they've been doing it a lot recently. I think my irritation comes from the fact that they're not doing it to make their customers happier with their product; they're doing it to avoid a storm of controversy from people who in large part aren't their customers. They have the right to do it, I understand it, and I might do the same in their place, because who wants a twitterstorm against their new product? But it's still annoying.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  In the case of DOA6, it was before the alleged Sony "censorship" rumors of recent years. So keep that in mind, DOA6 was released a couple of years ago. The DOA6 example is almost entirely a case where Koei Tecmo wanted to be taken "more seriously" as an eSports game. Now maybe you can argue that "eSports players don't play Dead or Alive", and only "casual players looking for sexiness play Dead or Alive". But... I know that's not true either. Some of my friends who were into fighting games were "serious" about their Dead or Alive combos / practice regiments / matchups / etc. etc. There are plenty of serious players in that group. On the one hand: you got the "casuals" who pay $1000 for hundreds of costumes (Dead or Alive 5 was very famous for its DLC costumes). "eSports" players didn't do this, because they were more focused on the combo practice rather than playing dress-up with these characters. (In contrast, the players who did find the characters sexy, probably did play "dress up" more often and were into buying these costume packs). Frankly: its not a clear cut case. I could very well see Koei Tecmo wanting to appeal to the eSports players, hoping that it'd propel their game to newer heights in the "serious" eSports ring (ex: Marvel vs Capcom 3 / Street Fighter 4). Furthermore, the "casual" audience argued that they deserved more influence than the eSport ambitions BECAUSE they spent all of this money on DLC costumes with no in-game effect aside from "playing dress up". --------- In contrast, Bandai's "Soul Calibur" series never really had this issue. Soul Calibur can remain "sexy costume / dressup" for casuals, because Bandai's "serious" esports game was Tekken. (And while Soul Calibur's "serious" players definitely held side tournaments, they were always seen as 2nd class citizens compared to Tekken at the eSports events). --------- Nintendo's "Smash Ultimate" example is kinda funny, because its clear that Nintendo doesn't really want Smash Ultimate to be an eSports title (despite it taking up a big eSports following). Nintendo's eSports ambitions are Pokken Tournament (Pokemon fighting game) and Splatoon. Despite not wanting to be an eSports title, Nintendo clearly is aiming the game at younger audiences, so various characters are a bit more covered up in Smash Ultimate (ex: Bayonetta, Pyra, etc. etc.)
ttt0 5y ago
What I find weird in our current status quo is how "sex work" and having an OnlyFans account is considered empowering, but a game about fictional characters like DOA is considered sexist and misogynist. I never played it, so I might be wrong, but isn't that why people play DOA in the first place? To see sexy women? So how's that trolling?
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > I never played it, so I might be wrong, but isn't that why people play DOA in the first place? To see sexy women? So how's that trolling? There's a fair number of players who were hoping that DOA would become an esport: akin to Marvel vs Capcom 3, Street Fighter 4, or Smash Ultimate. There's a discussion that must be had about DOA's excessive "sexiness" and whether or not that is hurting it from becoming a mainstream esports game. DOA 6 focused on the "cinematography", which caused an outrage because their fans wanted more emphasis on the sex-appeal (which was absolutely the focus of DOA2 through DOA5: "boob physics" was front and center in a lot of marketing) Now don't get me wrong, the discussion should be had. But... this isn't about censorship at all. This discussion ultimately comes down to the skirt length and bust size of Kasumi / Marie Rose (and other characters). To derail the discussion by yelling "censorship" is unnecessary, and unhelpful hyperbole.
- slg 5y ago
  >What I find weird in our current status quo is how "sex work" and having an OnlyFans account is considered empowering, but a game about fictional characters like DOA is considered sexist and misogynist. The difference is consent. A person is free to objectify themselves and doing so can be empowering. A person should be extremely cautious about creating fiction to objectify a group of people to which the author does not belong as this can be exploitative and have societal repercussions. I know next to nothing about the developers for the DOA franchise, but I am guessing there would be less controversy if the studio had a larger female presence.
  - ttt0 5y ago
    What consent? We're talking about fictional characters here. Is Dwarf Fortress an immoral game, because the authors are not a part of groups like dwarfs, elves and goblins? And some in-game events may occur without the consent of those characters? edit: Got rate limited for some reason and can no longer respond, so I'm just going to edit this post: What does the "consent from the group" even mean? Do you have to make a poll, write to the CEO of Women™ or something? Seriously. Can I even include women if I'm making an amateur video game as a one-man effort (no pun intended), and I myself am not a woman? And for dragontamer, I guess you got your answer. I don't personally care about video games at all, but some people believe this is immoral and rape-like (no consent), so it's not surprising to me that someone calls it censorship and points out the parallels to back when people tried to censor violence in video games and whatnot. edit2: > You are free to make whatever game you want. The public is free to respond to your game however they want. You aren't going to get many complaints if you "even include women". If you objectify those women, you might get met with those complaints. If you were a women objectify women, you can at least claim that your are taking control of the objectification. That is viewed as a valid excuse by a lot of people much like how I mentioned people in a minority group are generally allowed to make jokes at that groups expense. So I should take it as roughly "the consent from the group means that the group isn't going to cancel you"? But if that's the case then why is it called "consent"? Isn't the entire point of consent to ask before you take action? It's like saying "I'm going to force you to have sex with me, if you don't go to the police then it means you consented to it". And from my understanding that's literally what rape culture is.
alisonatwork 5y ago
I think the complaint of "censorship" might have some basis if the reason why the company changed the character models is to comply with obscenity laws in the most conservative country in which that particular game will be distributed. There is a case to be made that in a world where creators sell their content globally, conservative regions with a lot of potential customers might influence content that ends up also being sold in liberal regions. This might not be censorship, exactly, but it is an annoying side-effect of a globalized information economy. Instead of the world opening up and becoming more liberal, it might actually end up becoming more conservative, if transnational corporations decide that catering to the lowest common denominator is a more profitable route. I suppose the workaround for consumers is the same as it is for movies - to avoid the content designed to appeal to the broadest audience, and seek out indie creators who are still willing to cater to a more local or specialized audience. In the mean time, I do think it's fair for consumers to advocate for generally more liberal themes in games, although I'm not sure the sexiness of an outfit is really the hill to die on.

kstrauser 5y ago

Every bit of this is great, but I especially liked: > To the people who have been abusing the system: you are of course free to have your own opinions, and you are free to express them on your own site or anywhere else that will have you, but this is a warning notice. Do what you like but don’t do it here. You are free to contribute your thoughts on other topics if you honestly have something to add or some question to ask, but any sign of attempted pandemic flaming will be deleted as quickly as I see it. Go away and tell everyone that Big Pharma muzzled you, if that makes you feel better. But in the end, you’re already going to be the last people standing after the vaccines wipe the rest of us out, right? Isn’t that enough? I think that's the proper take. No one's denying anyone's right to express their opinion. They're just not providing a platform for factually incorrect ones.

paulpauper 5y ago
trolls obviously know this. they want the audience that comes from posting on a high traffic website. Posting your opinions on ramdomguydog. blogspot.com does not deliver much audience.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  I fully agree that they want to use the prestige of the trusted website's name on their rants. I think a lot of people genuinely believe that they're owed a soapbox, though.
  - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
    The type of person who only speaks, never listens/reads.

robbyking 5y ago

In my opinion, this is absolutely the right way to go. I know it's a completely different field, but I moderate a fairly large mountain biking forum, and I often have to remove comments that recommend techniques that could result in injury or death. It's often new riders who find that Technique B works better for them than Technique A, but they don't have the experience to understand why Technique B is dangerous. I can't imagine how much worse it must be in Dr. Lowe's field.

sneak 5y ago
Deleting those comments doesn't help the comment poster (or others) know why Technique B is dangerous, or inoculate them from hearing about Technique B later and using it without knowing the danger. We shouldn't pretend poisons don't exist, we should label them with warnings.
- 8note 5y ago
  They should not show up before the warning, and not at all in a recommendation thread. There should be a specific thread about poison
- ketzo 5y ago
  Okay, but if we're not able to label every single one (because we don't have the time/resources/ability to do so), we should probably still remove them, no? Better removed than unlabeled, as nice as a label might be.
  - r00fus 5y ago
    Didn't slashdot solve this like 20 years ago? Have moderation keys (+1 insightful, -1 redundant but maybe retooled to your audience/domain) and let the users moderate and have 2nd (even more trusted users) and 3rd level moderation (site owner) to moderate those moderations. It's like bureaucracy for moderation.
- marcinzm 5y ago
  >We shouldn't pretend poisons don't exist, we should label them with warnings. We also shouldn't put them in the fridge next to the bottle of coke no matter how well labeled.

SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago

Sounds like the author should have a chat with dang and compare notes.

paulpauper 5y ago
dang would tell him to have a feature to grey out troll comments
- f38zf5vdt 5y ago
  And when you find someone disagreeable, just give them the old "You're posting too fast, please slow down."
  - ttt0 5y ago
    Yeah, what's going on with this? If I did something wrong then just warn me first, because it comes out of nowhere and I have no idea what the hell is going on. How does it even work? Is it triggered automatically or what? Hey dang, you mind explaining this?
    - f38zf5vdt 5y ago
      https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/issues/21 https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/issues... It's not totally clear about how this works. It looks like I've been shadowbanned from making new posts at least temporarily, since when I tried to make a new post yesterday I was met with this error despite making no posts yesterday. I am not sure what the goal is. I already hit 500 so I've got the downvote, but maybe there's more rights and privileges that they want to keep me from obtaining with a higher upvote count?
raphlinus 5y ago
That's a large part of the reason I posted it. The situations are not exactly parallel though. Derek's blog is his space, and he absolutely has a right to curate it as he wishes, though in the past a laissez-faire approach has worked. I found this interesting for a few other reasons as well. It's a pretty solid data point that discourse around Covid is worse than around other scientific topics. Also, there are suggestions that a small number of people are purposefully stirring up shit (the fact that they didn't take hints that their mode of discourse was not welcome). I'm sure the same dynamic is at play on HN as well. Ultimately, we have to come up with strategies to deal with this. I'm hopeful that Derek's approach will work for his small (but excellent) corner of the Internet.

xhkkffbf 5y ago

Obviously we've had plenty of discussions about censorships and online fora and I've got nothing to add there. But does this strike anyone as specifically anti-science? If science is a process that's continually open to revision and re-examination, it seems like claiming a right to ban wrongthink goes directly against that part of the philosophy. What good is it to claim to be evidence-based if you also claim the ability to censor evidence that you've decided, a priori, that doesn't fit your desired narrative? I mean it's one thing to allow political discussions to be moderated but it seems like science claims a particular philosophy that must be open to challenge, right?

TameAntelope 5y ago
I disagree, mostly on the grounds that it takes very little effort to challenge something, and a lot more effort to correctly respond to that challenge. Honestly, I'm curious what you think a solution might be that would respect this basic fact of argumentation.
- godshatter 5y ago
  I'm not the person you're replying to, but I too have wondered about this. The only thing I can come up with is that it takes a lot less effort not to reply to the challenge. The urge to prove someone wrong is the other side of the coin for the trolling problem. People wouldn't fish if others didn't take the bait.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  It takes quite a bit of effort to credibly challenge something, unless there's a serious, obvious flaw in the methods or evidence supporting the original claim (that's what peer review is supposed to catch).
aliasEli 5y ago
Yes, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
wccrawford 5y ago
If the commenters are looking to do science, they can publish their own studies. If they're looking to argue science, They can start their own blog. They aren't being censored or silenced. They're just being removed from a personal blog.

cousin_it 5y ago

I don't think content creators should be in the business of providing a "platform" to anyone but themselves. Ideally, commenting should be decentralized: if you want to comment on someone's post P, write a post on your site and mark it as a comment on P. Comment filtering should also be decentralized: if you want to see a filtered view of comments on someone's post (for example, only polite comments), run a filter in your browser, tuned to show you only polite comments. All filters only on receiving of information, and controlled only by the receiver of information. Nobody's filter should ever stomp on anyone else's right to receive information.

zatertip 5y ago
Always refreshing to come to the technobro website to get the technobro take on how to solve a social problem with technical means.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  What they're describing is precisely the model most bloggers wanted for comments in the early days of blogging (late 90s & early 2000s). Trackbacks, pingbacks, etc. and other protocols were devised to allow bloggers to reply to each other with posts and aggregate them all together. It's not some 'technobro' solution, it's a way to publish content without incurring all of the real costs of also publishing (and managing) discussion forums or comment sections. It unfortunately never really took off because Facebook came in and became the defacto platform for people to post and comment on things--essentially becoming a giant ad-funded discussion forum moderated by Facebook staff and volunteers.
  - gerikson 5y ago
    Comment sections on big WP and Movable type blogs were a thing when Facebook was still growing. The march has been towards continued centralization. Disqus offered to offload busywork for bloggers - spam, identification etc. The "indieweb" is trying to bring back pingbacks etc.
  - JoshTriplett 5y ago

qbasic_forever 5y ago

I've noticed a good model for discourse online is when people have to pay a small amount to be part of the group. The comments on a $1/month patreon are an order of magnitude better than in a free-for-all subreddit for example. Some places can buck this trend but it usually requires a huge burden and dedicated moderation staff (which doesn't come for free).

papito 5y ago
A tiny barrier of entry increases the quality of participators by a huge amount. Show me a thing that has not been defiled by opening it wide to the horror that is the average intelligence. Twitter and Facebook is a dumpster fire, ultimately destroying political discourse and locking almost half of the population in a dangerous alternate reality. They now turned violent and will continue to do so. Masses of hodlers are now destabilizing markets with their GME raids and crypto. Etc...
freddie_mercury 5y ago
I agree with you but I've been astounded at how many people I've seen paying for Substack subscriptions apparently for the sole purpose of disagreeing with everything single thing written by the author, often in not very polite ways that end up getting them banned.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Maybe it filters for the people who reeeally want to disagree with the author.
alisonatwork 5y ago
I'm not sure I agree. Although it is true that comment politeness appears to improve behind a paywall, I also find that the diversity of opinion decreases, which tends to make the comments less interesting to read in the first place.
5y ago

adharmad 5y ago

"Go away and tell everyone that Big Pharma muzzled you, if that makes you feel better. But in the end, you’re already going to be the last people standing after the vaccines wipe the rest of us out, right? Isn’t that enough?" :-)

barbazoo 5y ago

I wish sites would just disable commenting altogether, at least on certain topics. That's what CBC up here does on anything that's in any way related to race, gender, climate, first nations, etc.

jonny_eh 5y ago
> CBC The Canadian Broadcasting Company: https://cbc.ca https://cbc.ca While it's a TV station, and a set of radio stations, they also provide a news website. > up here That would be Canada. Like Americans, many of us assume we're talking to Americans when writing online.
prawn 5y ago
I've run a sports forum for almost 20 years. For 18 years of that, it was with no-registration-required to post. There are methods and wordlists to discourage spamming and shadowbanning, but it was surprisingly tolerable all things considered. In recent years, anything pertaining to race or pandemic has been an absolute shitshow from local commenters and foreign agitators, but both are occasionally relevant to the forum (sports events being postponed or moved, etc) so I've been reluctant to can them completely. I eventually switched to registration-required, but in a way that no one noticed. But the other feature I added was flagging particular conversations as requiring a higher privilege level to post. Regular contributors can request a privilege upgrade to participate. This has helped.
motogpjimbo 5y ago
The BBC News website similarly disables comments on any article that's even remotely controversial. While some would undoubtedly consider that a good thing to protect the quality of the conversation, I'm not so sure myself. UK citizens are forced by law to fund the BBC through what is effectively a tax on television ownership. In addition, the BBC's takes on certain issues are known to be quite out of step with the feelings of the majority of the UK population. Allowing the BBC to selectively disable comments on such articles, which are forcibly funded by the people who might like to comment on them, seems wrong on some level. I'd rather the BBC removed commenting across the entire site than have the power to remove comments on specific articles they know are going to result in disagreement.

crazydoggers 5y ago

Hear, hear! Now we just need HN to follow suit. There’s nothing wrong with editorializing comment sections. Not every comment section on the web needs to encourage voices from every side in the name of free speech. I think websites perhaps should start to create “comment section covenant” that outline how subjects are handled. Ie No ad hominem No misinformation No conspiracies All comments failing will be deleted Etc etc

vorpalhex 5y ago
I agree, anyone pushing against our free speech rights should be censored! Sarcasm aside, there is no man fit to play the censor. Real life is too complex to oblige by naive rules.
- crazydoggers 5y ago
  > Real life is too complex to oblige by naive rules. The comment section of a website is not real life. You don’t have “rights” here, you’re allowed to use the site according to its terms. The servers, this site are private property, and the owners get to set the rules. So it’s not playing censor, it’s editorializing. You’re free to comment other places. I can and will choose sites that moderate voices that I don’t want to deal with. You can say that, “we’ll, this will cause silos”, but this experiment of everyone making any comments they want and everyone having to listen is a failure. It has only further divided people because the internet comment section is not the place to convert and educate people, so people just get more entrenched. You’re unlikely to be swayed by this comment for example. I for one am tired of it. I want comment sections that deal with people of a certain educational level, intelligence, and point of view. I don’t want to deal with incels, psychopaths, people without formal education etc. If you think internet comments are a right and moderating them is censorship, then yes, I want your comments gone from the sites I want to use and where I go to have conversations with intelligent people.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    So you want an echo chamber? I mean, that's fine if that's your goal but at least be direct. Also realize echo chambers are bad - they reinforce opinions on an identity basis, not a truth basis. Censorship can still happen on private property. That does not, per se, determine right or wrong. Nobody objects that kids websites don't allow pornography. We can also still object to censorship, even if it's on private property. You don't have some a right to be immune to criticism.

allochthon 5y ago

One of the hard problems of comment sections and forums is ad hom, incivility and lack of decorum. In cases of trolling and borderline behavior, it seems fine to just ban the offenders if there's a signup process. It would be nice to see more consensus around this. There's something to be said for freedom of speech when considered in context, but the manner of expressing oneself is largely orthogonal to what is said and has a lot of bearing on whether a conversation thread is fruitful or painful for the participants. It seems to me that in most cases a collaborative search for truth doesn't need to be painful.

lamontcg 5y ago
The ones making the loudest arguments for civility though are usually the trolls. Normal people get irritated at them, lose their patience and tell them to fuck off and trolls love using civility as a club in return.
ItsMonkk 5y ago
This all comes back to Dunbar's number[0]. When ape cultures grow to large, eventually there is a dispute and you get a tribal split. Some of the tribe sticks with the original leader, some move to the new tribe. Researchers have found that this is related to neocortex size, and that if you take human's neocortex size you would reach tribes of 150. Article comment sections are tribes. If those tribes get to be beyond 150, you reach natural tribal splits, but with no way to actually split. Hacker News comment sections are a tribe. Sub-reddits are tribes. We're all fighting Dunbar's Number. We're all going against the grain. Incivility is guaranteed. Other than going to a smaller website or creating another sub-reddit, I do not know of a single community that actually takes Dunbar into account. And even if such a comment website was created, then we get the opposite problem. If we segregate everyone to their own perfect 150 person tribes, then we get bubbles! We get the antivax tribe feeding their own biases with no checks. So not only do you need tribes, but you need to find "model tribes" that the other tribes can look up to. So you need tribal networks as you wouldn't want to centrally control that. It might be a good idea, that when speaking outside of your tribe, you are communicating not as yourself but for your tribe. So people don't see allochthon talking, they see Hacker News talking. If your tribe did not back the comment, they could decide to hide it themselves. If you don't agree with that, that might incite a tribal split. If other tribes decided they didn't like that comment, they would down-vote your entire tribe. Being part of an elite tribe might be a signal of social status in much the same way that historic Venice Coffee houses and the conversations and inspiration that came from then led the Art world. And as each tribe is small, each person within the tribe is personally accountable. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

temp8964 5y ago

I agree the author can choose whatever model of discussion he wants. But I don't think the commenters he referred to are "trolls". Those commenters are people who hold their (maybe stupid) opinions and try very hard to convince others. Even though they seem to create inflammatory wars, maybe that's not their intention. Some of them can be civil and they truly believe what they say. They are just stubborn and unwelcomed by the host. But I think "troll" means something else. Surely most authors don't like this kind of commenters. What is different is the nature of the blog, which is focused on medicine. This seems to make the alternative views on the issues kind of harmful to the society. And the author has more reason to ban them. But honestly, I don't believe any doctor in the U.S. comes to the comments section to get prescription advices.

gerikson 5y ago
Poe's law tells us that a parody of a viewpoint is essentially indistinguishable from a sincerely held viewpoint. The best trolls are the ones who are playing true believers.
- TheFreim 5y ago
  > The best trolls are the ones who are playing true believers. I think the best trolls are true believers who know how to not take their own views seriously. This gives them the ability to not only screw with you but also at various points make actual real points about things. The mixing and matching of reality, perceived or real, with content designed to anger and upset makes for a recipe for anger and annoyance.

wyattjoh 5y ago

Quite a good analogy by The Coral Project[0] on similar problems faced by other organizations with comment sections on their sites https://guides.coralproject.net/the-empty-box/ https://guides.coralproject.net/the-empty-box/ Edit: Adding this other source for some more deep details https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01119 https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01119 [0]: https://coralproject.net/ https://coralproject.net/

iNane9000 5y ago

If you want to make a website, that’s your right in our free market system. If you want to allow the public to post on your website, to add value to your product, again that’s your right. If it benefits your business, then you should do it. You can even moderate the comments to the point your website is inherently fraudulent. That’s your right as it stands today. So to lament how one can’t get only good comments, which disagree with your views only when your views are wrong, and then write long essays about how certain people will not comment the way you want them to, doesn’t seem very practical. I’ve been reading troll comments, and many non troll but equally destructive and yet clearly well intentioned comments, for decades and that won’t change as long as the internet is free. Accept that freedom or don’t try to profit from it in the first place. Write books instead of blogs.

PaulHoule 5y ago

The gangs who are promoting coronavirus comment spam create two kinds of victims. (1) are the people whose free speech is impaired by relentless toxic comments (2) are the posters themselves who will be increasingly isolated by their behavior and feeling persecuted. It is like the cult member who is driven into evangelism not to recruit new members but to become convinced that the outside world is corrupt. These will become increasingly radicalized and over the next few years will be recruited into more violent attacks and other forms of exploitation such as spending their income on scam alt-health supplements. The most difficult problem in all of this is the the type (2) victims and many observers will insist that their disingenuous communications be taken at face value which is absolutely exhausting for the the type (1) victims who really ought so say that we don't want to hear about their dog pills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGAqYNFQdZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGAqYNFQdZ4

xoa 5y ago

This post is as good a time as any to rant a bit about an extremely frustratingly and commonly forgotten bit of Free Speech: freedom of speech and association absolutely includes the freedom to NOT say or associate with something! It's both a positive and a negative right. This seems like it should be rather intuitive. If someone points a gun at my head and demands I put up a sign support XYZ message on my property, is it not obvious that would violate my free speech rights? By the same token, my choosing to support a single message or limited set of messages, be it for a candidate, cause, or anything else, necessarily means my choosing to NOT support an infinite number of others (and most particularly messages contrary to the one(s) I support). And this is one case where it makes absolutely zero difference that the message is on my blog or website vs my lawn or the side of my barn. It is the essence of Free Speech that each person may direct their resources towards content-specific messages subjectively. So when Derek Lowe, or Hacker News, or Reddit or YouTube for that matter delete a comment, ban someone, or any other such action they're not censoring, they are ENGAGING in Free Speech. People are free to put out their own soap boxes and argue their cases before the public should they wish. But they don't have a right to other people's private property nor to an audience, and in fact that would be completely contrary to freedom. The point of Free Speech is as a system to hopefully edge closer to truth and react to changing evidence, circumstances and societal shifts by keeping arguments and reactions within the realms of social, economic, and political consequences. Not force. >but I don’t like it on principle, either. He has nothing to apologize for. Banning people and deleting comments from his own soap box is itself part of the essence of Freedom of Speech. Everyone may react, and he can react to their reactions, and so on and so forth in a never ending dynamic system, all secure in that nobody may ever legally put a permanent end to the debate with violence. Yet for some reason a lot of otherwise very smart people have allowed a certain class of parasites, misanthropes, malicious/opportunistic authoritarians, and the lazy to make them feel bad about exercising their speech rights and even try to turn that back around on them. What's truly been worrying is to see that leak into the mainstream Republican Party, one of the two big American coalitions. The blatancy of the anti-Free Speech laws they're now passing at the state level is fairly horrifying. EDIT: In an interesting bit of timing, arguments were just made in NetChoice v. Moody regarding a preliminary injunction against the recent Florida law attempting to state regulate speech in networked spaces (unless you own a theme park). A number of different lawyers live followed it on twitter if anyone is interested [0, 1 amongst others]. Directly relevant to this discussion though. EDIT 2: FWIW courts have faced these cases before, and for anyone interested in reading more on the legal side of things, a term to get you started in searches for court cases is "editorial discretion" and the exercise thereof, which were frequently fought in the realm of newspapers. An example covering some of this would be Wisconsin Association of Nursing Homes, Inc. v. Journal Co. (1979). Editorial discretion is a core function of speech, since often choosing what not to say is at least as important as what to say. ---- 0: https://twitter.com/AriCohn/status/1409563991974817800 https://twitter.com/AriCohn/status/1409563991974817800 1: https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1409562758291599362 https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/140956275829159936...

Huwyt_Nashi047 5y ago

I don't particularly mind censorship, I acknowledge that it's a privilege that comes with power, but the attitude of these people is something else. They are cowards. They don't own it, they act like their hand is being forced. It's always "a shame it's come to this". It's never their responsibility, it's always the fault of those they disagree with. Unlike this current progressive/Zionist hegemony, I can't think of any powerful right/White/conservative movement that has acted in such an underhanded way towards its enemies. We own it. We ban and condemn, and tell you exactly why. When we censor, we are proud to censor, because we know it's right. Either these people don't feel the same, or they're deliberately antagonistic.

afrcnc 5y ago

If news sites know what's good for them, they should be disabling the comments section asap

freetime2 5y ago
Why would disabling the comments section be good for them? Doesn’t commenting increase engagement? Also - aren’t we in the comments section of a news site right now? Are you suggesting that HN should disable comments?
- ineedasername 5y ago
  HN, despite the "N", isn't really a news site in the most commonly used sense: A site that is an originator of news. HN is... not something there is a specific word for. Something like "mostly community-driven news aggregation & discussion forum about technology or something else if enough people think it's interesting." That's a bit long, maybe an acronym would work better: MCDNADFATSEEPTII.
  - krapp 5y ago
    "content aggregator" or "news aggregator."
  - freetime2 5y ago
    What is fundamentally different about the comment section on HN vs. an originator of news, though? We read news stories (or the headline at least), and we jump into the comments section to share our thoughts with each other. I mean, subjectively I would say that HN is a much better community than most news sites - but I'm clearly biased here and I'm sure there are many people who would disagree with me that the HN comments section holds any value. How do you feel about a site like Ars Technica, which is an originator of news and also has a very active forum and comments section? I personally disagree with a lot of the comments (and perhaps more importantly, the style of commenting) on that site and regret it almost every time I browse into the comments, but I wouldn't say it is Ars' best interest to shut the comments down. I think they probably get a lot additional ad impressions, premium subscribers, etc. from people who interact with the comments. And if it's just a difference in the quality of the comments - is the correct course of action for news sites to disable comments, or work to improve them through moderation, UX, etc? Not trying to be nit-picky here btw, I genuinely did not understand the basis for the parent's comment that "If news sites know what's good for them, they should be disabling the comments section asap".

musicale 5y ago

Usually "an announcement about the comment section" means "we're disabling comments entirely." So I was pleasantly surprised that it's just moderation.

mianos 5y ago

At least it is somewhat civilised. The comment section of the newspapers down here in Australia now how the lowest signal to noise ratio I have ever seen on a forum in my life and I am old, first using BBSs in the early 80s. Almost every comment is completely senseless with by far the majority blaming every issue, related or otherwise in the article directly on the prime minister or his party.

prawn 5y ago
It has to be seen to be believed. I used to play a game of trying to guess the gripe or dispute unfolding based on the article, but was always surprised when I reached the footer at the level of idiocy. I generally suspected that a good deal of it was agitators associated with the two major parties, acting as random people and trying to start/steer conversation to maintain talking points. Either way, I've never seen a single comment or discussion worth reading at all on something like Adelaide Now/The Advertiser. Quite the achievement.
mabub24 5y ago
It's similar on a lot of Canadian newspapers. The real interesting comments come out when they forget to turn off comments on a youtube video. Some news services, like the CBC, now just turn off comments on certain topics because the comments simply added zero value, often detracting from the stories like a kind of intellectual blackhole sucking any reason out of the air.

freetime2 5y ago

> I will be deleting whatever I feel are tendentious comments meant to keep the coronavirus arguments going I think it would be better if this post included some guidelines about what constitutes acceptable vs. unacceptable content. I don't doubt that he is dealing with a lot of trolls/non-scientific nonsense, and I understand that he is well within his rights to delete anything he wants, but "whatever I feel are tendentious comments meant to keep the coronavirus arguments going" comes across as a bit too subjective for my tastes and would undermine my confidence in a forum. Note I don't participate in the comments on that site, so this doesn't impact me personally at all. I just feel like if you need to implement censorship, you should try to keep it as objective as possible.

andrewflnr 5y ago
You might have a point for an actual "forum", but this is his personal blog, and comments exist at all there at his personal pleasure. Your confidence in it doesn't matter, nor does any other reader's. The only consequence to someone "losing confidence" in his personal moderation style is that they don't comment anymore, which is fine at worst, more likely exactly the goal. Further, objectivity is impossible in moderation. There are no shortcuts, some judgment is always required or your "objective" rules will be gamed to death. Acknowledging the subjectivity is exactly the right approach. I think this is the future of "forums" as well. Moderation depends on trust, so we'll be more explicit about who we're trusting, and just roll with it. Best case we get multiple moderation perspectives on a decentralized discussion mechanism. But if we just get used to the idea that forums are shaped by the personalities of their moderators, that's probably an improvement.
- freetime2 5y ago
  > this is his personal blog, and comments exist at all there at his personal pleasure. Your confidence in it doesn't matter, nor does any other reader's. This is a fairly nihilistic take. Lots of people do things for greater purpose than "personal pleasure". I don't know if this particular blogger cares about earning peoples' confidence or not - but I do think it's something that many bloggers/moderators care deeply about. > Further, objectivity is impossible in moderation. Absolute objectivity may be an impossible ideal, but I don't think that means we should completely give up on objectivity. Look at the US legal system - which aims to bring as much fairness and objectivity as possible to the extremely subjective process of criminal justice. A written code of laws, trial by peers, appeals system, etc. It's very far from ideal, and yet worlds better than if we just gave up completely and said "objectivity is impossible", and let the judge issue whatever verdict and sentence at whim. We see analogs of these checks and balances on popular forums, such as upvotes/downvotes (trial by peers) and community guidelines (written code of laws). To be clear I am not suggesting every blogger should go and try to replicate all of the checks and balances of the US legal system to moderate their blogs. But I do think that something as simple as posting a set of guidelines, and referring back to them regularly when people step out of line, can be a good way to set the tone for a community. Something similar to the HN guidelines, which I think are pretty good [1]. I'm also not implying that Derek Lowe is by any means obligated to write out a set of guidelines for my or anyone else's benefit. Just sharing my opinion of what could have made this a more informative blog post - for anyone who cares to read (and of course disagree). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

javajosh 5y ago

Reading posts like this make me so grateful for good moderation, and for not being responsible for nurturing and protecting an online community, because it sounds far more difficult than it should be. As a technologist it seems like we want a high-tech solution (and I'm surprised that AI-driven moderation isn't mentioned more in the discussion; it seems to me you could accomplish a lot with sentiment analysis plus other heuristics like account age and activity). But another thought is to treat trolling itself as a disease to be modeled as a diffusion process, infecting previously good actors and tempting them into trolling behavior themselves. Its remarkable how fragile communities are in the face of even one or two determined malefactors! The OP's sensible approach feels like a kind of vaccination itself, in that it should slow the rate of reinfection such that while it won't eliminate trolling entirely, it will keep the inevitable outbreaks small and localized and not self-sustaining. But, sheesh, what a PITA. Is anyone working on automating the distracting/annoying/frustrating task of internet forum moderation?

deleted 5y ago

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