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You’re thinking about the culture of your site, I am talking about the rights of your users. Your users create the value and deserve it (honestly it should be p

You’re thinking about the culture of your site, I am talking about the rights of your users. Your users create the value and deserve it (honestly it should be protected by law). If you edit the link and then someone takes over the domain and makes it a porn site, that can cause direct harm to your users. You need to accept the cost as part of the cost of doing business, and if you really edit posts very rarely than the bureaucratic impact should be minimal.

dang 5y ago
This strikes me as an archetypal example of the legalistic sort of thinking that is popular with a vocal minority of internet forum users who like to make litigious arguments, look for problems that don't actually exist in practice, then demand bureaucratic systems to "solve" the "problems". I don't believe that we're violating human rights by operating HN, and the idea of building software to address such cases as "someone taking over the domain and making it a porn site" is an example of what I mean by problems that don't exist in practice. I don't mean to pick on you personally—it's a style of thinking that I've encountered on a regular basis. Being a moderator, and thus a sort of bureaucrat, attracts arguments from the bureaucratically minded. All I can tell you is that it's the opposite of how we think about HN. In my view it would be a big mistake to let it direct how we operate HN or what features to add. The way I look at it, HN users have a right to an interesting forum that doesn't suck (or at least relatively doesn't suck), that's a hard problem, and anything that detracts focus from it is a really bad idea. I get that you think differently and I don't mean to be disrespectful. But yes, I am thinking about the culture of HN.
- lwhi 5y ago
  I don't think what you did was awful, especially since you went to the effort of explaining exactly what was changed and why. However, I also think there should be space for discourse about the mechanics of the action; however academic that discussion might end up being. Personally, I think a suggestion to the OP encouraging them to edit the post themself might have been a less controversial method of achieving the same aim.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

dang 5y ago

This strikes me as an archetypal example of the legalistic sort of thinking that is popular with a vocal minority of internet forum users who like to make litigious arguments, look for problems that don't actually exist in practice, then demand bureaucratic systems to "solve" the "problems". I don't believe that we're violating human rights by operating HN, and the idea of building software to address such cases as "someone taking over the domain and making it a porn site" is an example of what I mean by problems that don't exist in practice. I don't mean to pick on you personally—it's a style of thinking that I've encountered on a regular basis. Being a moderator, and thus a sort of bureaucrat, attracts arguments from the bureaucratically minded. All I can tell you is that it's the opposite of how we think about HN. In my view it would be a big mistake to let it direct how we operate HN or what features to add. The way I look at it, HN users have a right to an interesting forum that doesn't suck (or at least relatively doesn't suck), that's a hard problem, and anything that detracts focus from it is a really bad idea. I get that you think differently and I don't mean to be disrespectful. But yes, I am thinking about the culture of HN.

lwhi 5y ago
I don't think what you did was awful, especially since you went to the effort of explaining exactly what was changed and why. However, I also think there should be space for discourse about the mechanics of the action; however academic that discussion might end up being. Personally, I think a suggestion to the OP encouraging them to edit the post themself might have been a less controversial method of achieving the same aim.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]