6 ms·

I’d just like to take a moment to say how much I appreciate HN and all the work put in by dang and the moderation team. Everyone here really cares about keeping

I’d just like to take a moment to say how much I appreciate HN and all the work put in by dang and the moderation team. Everyone here really cares about keeping discussions lively and respectful. This is a wonderful community to be a part of! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

supperburg 5y ago
- Dumblydorr 5y ago
  Well now, seems this Ebaneezer needs to be visited by some ghosts tonight. Merry Christmas, I hope you bring cheer and happiness to those in your life.
  - supperburg 5y ago
  - fuzzfactor 5y ago
    Some of the most outstanding things are precarious and not as well supported as they should be. Especially those times when one single individual makes such a significant difference. Think about Einstein, most of his life people had to face that there would be no suitable replacement once he was gone for any reason. Christmas can mean many things to many people, of course even a miracle if you would like. “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein “I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.” - AEinstein "I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” ― Albert Einstein Frosty, Redbone w/ Dr. John: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXfDBH2bij4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXfDBH2bij4
- tjpnz 5y ago
  Happy holidays!
- adventured 5y ago
  HN is 15 years old. It isn't fragile and its position isn't precarious.
  - supperburg 5y ago
    1: how are hosting costs paid for? 2: how many people need to get hit by a bus to bring it down? Yes, it is fragile and precarious and transient. Why would you delude yourself? I think your emotions are clouding your logical faculties. If Dan G got hit by a bus I know for a fact there is nobody who could replace him. To serf That’s a very elegant observation. When I imagine hacker news shutting down I can only think of the massive implications it would have for my life and I imagine feeling scared because it’s like a part of me is gone. It would be a massive thing and I’m not sure everyone like me realizes it. I’m working on a replacement now even if that’s insane and impossible.
    - serf 5y ago
      I can't reply to the rest of your replies due to karma bombing, but I wanted to point out : Many beautiful things are fleeting, and many of those beauties exist exactly due to their ephemeral transient nature. I've never thought of HN as one of those 'beautiful and fragile' things, especially after over a decade -- maybe I will once it's gone -- I simply want to point out that some of the world's most beautiful things are in-fact 'precarious and transient' , and that makes them no less spectacular. Happy holidays, everyone.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      1. Hosting costs are paid by Ycombinator, in exchange Ycombinator alumni can see each other(orange names I think), there are job ads for Ycombinator companies and launch threads for Ycombinator companies. dang talks about it often. 2. I think there are two active moderators, that also work on the software side. I have no idea if they are the only people that can do this job or the best in a long list of candidates, so it's hard to answer that question. > If Dan G got hit by a bus I know for a fact there is nobody who could replace him. I think that too, and that makes his presence and contributions all the more valuable to me. In a way, the fact that you care deeply about this place shows how special it is. I think that as long as there are people like dang and you around, HN or its spirit will find a way.
- hereforphone 5y ago
  Sir Reddit is down the hall
  - supperburg 5y ago
    - hereforphone 5y ago
      Long time lurker. Your attitude suggests you're not feeling jolly and merry. Not a Christmas fan I assume?
      - supperburg 5y ago
      - seattle_spring 5y ago
        I've always found it so weird that "account age," or lack thereof, is used as an attempted insult here and on Reddit. I've remade my account, both here and there, several times, as I'm sure a large majority of other users have at one point or another. Account age is literally and figuratively meaningless.
    - genghisjahn 5y ago
      Profile says your account is…5 months old?
jader201 5y ago
Agreed. Kinda makes you wonder why other communities haven’t been able to reproduce the level of quality and civility (I know HN is still far from perfect, but night and day vs. other platforms). A great community to be a part of, and much appreciation to those that oversee and contribute to the high quality and respectful discussions.
- greeklish 5y ago
  On HN there's the process of shadowbanning entire users accounts. By losing the noisy/spamming/trolling posters entirely, we might also lose their constructive/valuable content too. Since I was a teenager, in the vBulletin v3+ forums era, I've wanted to develop an access control / rate limiting system where moderators would be responsible for categorizing posts depending on the contents of the submitted posts and the user who created them.
  - nrb 5y ago
    There’s no shortage of constructive/valuable content by people who don’t also regularly spam or troll, they likely stick around _because_ the low-value commenters get shadowbanned.
  - muzani 5y ago
    I regularly "report" behaving shadowbanned people. If someone has gone a while only saying productive things, the system unbans them. On the other hand, I'm surprised how profilic certain people are. They get absolutely no feedback, but will go around trolling people several times a day.
    - dang 5y ago
      We have to unban accounts manually, though users of course can still vouch for their comments in the meantime, which is basically a per-post unban mechanism. If anyone notices an account that is banned that shouldn't be banned, they're welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. We don't want anyone to be banned if they've fixed whatever the original issue was and are abiding by the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
SmellTheGlove 5y ago
Same to you!
mostertoaster 5y ago
I kind of agree with this. It’s like I have my grievances with the HN community, and I think there are times where articles get flagged because they are of a certain bent, but mostly it is surprisingly fair. I’ve been (rightly) chastised by dang, though generally I try not to troll. (Sorry to those I’ve been a troll too) For the most part I don’t know a better place to have discussions of the kind you can have here. Happy holidays, and Merry Christmas if you’re so inclined, and a happy new year!
- tomcam 5y ago
  > I’ve been (rightly) chastised by dang, though generally I try not to troll. (Sorry to those I’ve been a troll too) Preach. Same here. Took me a while to fit in but dang was always correct in his rebukes to me.
stopping 5y ago
Strongly agree. I'm deeply disappointed with the depth of discourse in other internet communities which implement upvoting; the highest voted comments are usually shallow hot takes or low-effort jokes. However, on HN the most substantial and interesting comments are the ones that typically find their way to the top of the discussion. I can't remember the last time I ever learned anything new and interesting from any other social media site, whereas the HN community continuously offers a wealth of deliberately considered perspectives. Major thanks to the HN community and those who keep it running!
josuedev 5y ago
HN is my favorite daily read, the incredible amount of knowledge gained through this site has been one of the greatest gifts which I get to enjoy every day! Happy Holidays!
benwills 5y ago
As someone who has moderated forums in the past, I 100% concur that I don't know that HN is what it is without dang. And I also still can't fully wrap my mind around how he and the team have been able to guardrail the discourse to keep it as high quality as it is...especially over the last few years. It's insanely impressive, and I'm incredibly grateful that this community exists.
chris_st 5y ago
Absolutely true, and a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone here!

supperburg 5y ago

Dumblydorr 5y ago
Well now, seems this Ebaneezer needs to be visited by some ghosts tonight. Merry Christmas, I hope you bring cheer and happiness to those in your life.
- supperburg 5y ago
- fuzzfactor 5y ago
  Some of the most outstanding things are precarious and not as well supported as they should be. Especially those times when one single individual makes such a significant difference. Think about Einstein, most of his life people had to face that there would be no suitable replacement once he was gone for any reason. Christmas can mean many things to many people, of course even a miracle if you would like. “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein “I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.” - AEinstein "I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” ― Albert Einstein Frosty, Redbone w/ Dr. John: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXfDBH2bij4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXfDBH2bij4
tjpnz 5y ago
Happy holidays!
adventured 5y ago
HN is 15 years old. It isn't fragile and its position isn't precarious.
- supperburg 5y ago
  1: how are hosting costs paid for? 2: how many people need to get hit by a bus to bring it down? Yes, it is fragile and precarious and transient. Why would you delude yourself? I think your emotions are clouding your logical faculties. If Dan G got hit by a bus I know for a fact there is nobody who could replace him. To serf That’s a very elegant observation. When I imagine hacker news shutting down I can only think of the massive implications it would have for my life and I imagine feeling scared because it’s like a part of me is gone. It would be a massive thing and I’m not sure everyone like me realizes it. I’m working on a replacement now even if that’s insane and impossible.
  - serf 5y ago
    I can't reply to the rest of your replies due to karma bombing, but I wanted to point out : Many beautiful things are fleeting, and many of those beauties exist exactly due to their ephemeral transient nature. I've never thought of HN as one of those 'beautiful and fragile' things, especially after over a decade -- maybe I will once it's gone -- I simply want to point out that some of the world's most beautiful things are in-fact 'precarious and transient' , and that makes them no less spectacular. Happy holidays, everyone.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    1. Hosting costs are paid by Ycombinator, in exchange Ycombinator alumni can see each other(orange names I think), there are job ads for Ycombinator companies and launch threads for Ycombinator companies. dang talks about it often. 2. I think there are two active moderators, that also work on the software side. I have no idea if they are the only people that can do this job or the best in a long list of candidates, so it's hard to answer that question. > If Dan G got hit by a bus I know for a fact there is nobody who could replace him. I think that too, and that makes his presence and contributions all the more valuable to me. In a way, the fact that you care deeply about this place shows how special it is. I think that as long as there are people like dang and you around, HN or its spirit will find a way.
hereforphone 5y ago
Sir Reddit is down the hall
- supperburg 5y ago
  - hereforphone 5y ago
    Long time lurker. Your attitude suggests you're not feeling jolly and merry. Not a Christmas fan I assume?
    - supperburg 5y ago
    - seattle_spring 5y ago
      I've always found it so weird that "account age," or lack thereof, is used as an attempted insult here and on Reddit. I've remade my account, both here and there, several times, as I'm sure a large majority of other users have at one point or another. Account age is literally and figuratively meaningless.
  - genghisjahn 5y ago
    Profile says your account is…5 months old?

jader201 5y ago

Agreed. Kinda makes you wonder why other communities haven’t been able to reproduce the level of quality and civility (I know HN is still far from perfect, but night and day vs. other platforms). A great community to be a part of, and much appreciation to those that oversee and contribute to the high quality and respectful discussions.

greeklish 5y ago
On HN there's the process of shadowbanning entire users accounts. By losing the noisy/spamming/trolling posters entirely, we might also lose their constructive/valuable content too. Since I was a teenager, in the vBulletin v3+ forums era, I've wanted to develop an access control / rate limiting system where moderators would be responsible for categorizing posts depending on the contents of the submitted posts and the user who created them.
- nrb 5y ago
  There’s no shortage of constructive/valuable content by people who don’t also regularly spam or troll, they likely stick around _because_ the low-value commenters get shadowbanned.
- muzani 5y ago
  I regularly "report" behaving shadowbanned people. If someone has gone a while only saying productive things, the system unbans them. On the other hand, I'm surprised how profilic certain people are. They get absolutely no feedback, but will go around trolling people several times a day.
  - dang 5y ago
    We have to unban accounts manually, though users of course can still vouch for their comments in the meantime, which is basically a per-post unban mechanism. If anyone notices an account that is banned that shouldn't be banned, they're welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. We don't want anyone to be banned if they've fixed whatever the original issue was and are abiding by the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

SmellTheGlove 5y ago

Same to you!

mostertoaster 5y ago

I kind of agree with this. It’s like I have my grievances with the HN community, and I think there are times where articles get flagged because they are of a certain bent, but mostly it is surprisingly fair. I’ve been (rightly) chastised by dang, though generally I try not to troll. (Sorry to those I’ve been a troll too) For the most part I don’t know a better place to have discussions of the kind you can have here. Happy holidays, and Merry Christmas if you’re so inclined, and a happy new year!

tomcam 5y ago
> I’ve been (rightly) chastised by dang, though generally I try not to troll. (Sorry to those I’ve been a troll too) Preach. Same here. Took me a while to fit in but dang was always correct in his rebukes to me.

stopping 5y ago

Strongly agree. I'm deeply disappointed with the depth of discourse in other internet communities which implement upvoting; the highest voted comments are usually shallow hot takes or low-effort jokes. However, on HN the most substantial and interesting comments are the ones that typically find their way to the top of the discussion. I can't remember the last time I ever learned anything new and interesting from any other social media site, whereas the HN community continuously offers a wealth of deliberately considered perspectives. Major thanks to the HN community and those who keep it running!

josuedev 5y ago

HN is my favorite daily read, the incredible amount of knowledge gained through this site has been one of the greatest gifts which I get to enjoy every day! Happy Holidays!

benwills 5y ago

As someone who has moderated forums in the past, I 100% concur that I don't know that HN is what it is without dang. And I also still can't fully wrap my mind around how he and the team have been able to guardrail the discourse to keep it as high quality as it is...especially over the last few years. It's insanely impressive, and I'm incredibly grateful that this community exists.

chris_st 5y ago

Absolutely true, and a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone here!