5 ms·

Then don't be bothered by the scare word and just do what's best for the site. People (especially internet commenters) don't really understand what "censorship"

Then don't be bothered by the scare word and just do what's best for the site. People (especially internet commenters) don't really understand what "censorship" means and only really use it to whinge about not getting their way. reddit's /r/politics mods recently decided to start moderating away the "does anything else think this thing that we all think? vote me up!" and all of the comments on that announcement were accusations of censorship. Nobody is trying to censor anyone, they just want to improve the content, but the people making the self-posts (or in the case of HN the anger porn) want their attention and think it's censorship when they aren't given it.

brlewis 15y ago
Taking away opportunities to whinge is what's best for the site. I'd rather see the duplicates and not see the "censorship" posts.
- frossie 15y ago
  Also, I think there are two kinds of links, "original story" links, and "what are people saying" links. For example if you are for some reason genuinely interested in AirBnB as a business, both the original story AND what tech crunch are saying about it is potentially of interest, if you believe techcrunch is an influential source that can affect AirBnB's prospects. As to the OP, I wish for what some of the open source bugzillas do - when you submit a bug on, say, cups printing with foo driver, the system does a search on those keywords and presents you with bugs that may be duplicate. I don't think that "forces" the user to do research, but assuming a well meaning user, which most of us are, it allows them to realize there is an ongoing discussion and join that. The problem I haven't figured out is how you would implement this with the bookmarklet - the main site submission would be straighforward.
- ketralnis 15y ago
  Clearly giving the whiners whatever they ask to make them shut up isn't good for the community. You teach them that whining gives them what they want, which will just make the whining worse because it becomes a successful tool.
  - dpritchett 15y ago
    There's an important distinction between "we don't negotiate with terrorists" and "we will never implement a worthwhile feature if it was requested in a disrespectful manner". Take the Zed Shaw + dongml story [1]. Zed's behavior was silly, but the loophole needed to be closed regardless and so it was. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601342 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601342
jerf 15y ago
Considering the incentives that YCombinator has for hosting this site in the first place, you aren't going to be able to remove the need to be perceived as being reasonable in not killing bad news about YCombinator companies. This is just a cost the site will have to deal with; all the alternatives are worse for either the community or YCombinator. I agree with the broad thrust of your post, actually, people do scream censorship at the drop of a hat when inappropriate, but however unfortunate the reality may be, it's best to let this exception through.

brlewis 15y ago

Taking away opportunities to whinge is what's best for the site. I'd rather see the duplicates and not see the "censorship" posts.

frossie 15y ago
Also, I think there are two kinds of links, "original story" links, and "what are people saying" links. For example if you are for some reason genuinely interested in AirBnB as a business, both the original story AND what tech crunch are saying about it is potentially of interest, if you believe techcrunch is an influential source that can affect AirBnB's prospects. As to the OP, I wish for what some of the open source bugzillas do - when you submit a bug on, say, cups printing with foo driver, the system does a search on those keywords and presents you with bugs that may be duplicate. I don't think that "forces" the user to do research, but assuming a well meaning user, which most of us are, it allows them to realize there is an ongoing discussion and join that. The problem I haven't figured out is how you would implement this with the bookmarklet - the main site submission would be straighforward.
ketralnis 15y ago
Clearly giving the whiners whatever they ask to make them shut up isn't good for the community. You teach them that whining gives them what they want, which will just make the whining worse because it becomes a successful tool.
- dpritchett 15y ago
  There's an important distinction between "we don't negotiate with terrorists" and "we will never implement a worthwhile feature if it was requested in a disrespectful manner". Take the Zed Shaw + dongml story [1]. Zed's behavior was silly, but the loophole needed to be closed regardless and so it was. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601342 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601342

jerf 15y ago

Considering the incentives that YCombinator has for hosting this site in the first place, you aren't going to be able to remove the need to be perceived as being reasonable in not killing bad news about YCombinator companies. This is just a cost the site will have to deal with; all the alternatives are worse for either the community or YCombinator. I agree with the broad thrust of your post, actually, people do scream censorship at the drop of a hat when inappropriate, but however unfortunate the reality may be, it's best to let this exception through.