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All your comments in that thread are negative. I just see an angry and hostile person who’s rocking a boat on a sea of conspiracy. As Dang said in comment you

by monkin 4y ago

All your comments in that thread are negative. I just see an angry and hostile person who’s rocking a boat on a sea of conspiracy. As Dang said in comment you linked: “That's no fun and does nothing for the community.”.

ushakov 4y ago
i'm not denying that i was in angry mood when commenting in the thread but the reason i've got angry is because the original comment i made was moved to the very last position not by downvoting, but by undemocratic rulers of HN the angry comments in thread came after that accident happened
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  I think it’s very explicit that HN never intends to be a democracy, and one of the techniques it uses is fairly strong moderation.
  - spoils19 4y ago
    So the community espouses the free market of ideas, yet we're supposed to love it's strong moderation?
    - Kye 4y ago
      The community is made up of people from all walks of life from everywhere on the planet. It's impossible to speak of it in general terms. No, not everyone wants an ideological free-for-all.
      - eleet_hacker 4y ago
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    How does that make it ok? Mods moderate, ...and their moderation action caused this flood of negative reaction which wouldn't have been their otherwise. If it's valid to criticise a critic, it must also be valid to criticise a critic critic. The merits of a given argument or action do not rest on "because daddy said so". There is and must be a daddy, but no daddy is above critique themselves even though their job is to moderate others.
    - dang 4y ago
      The downweighting in the case of ushakov's comment wasn't done by a mod. It was done by a regular user who, along with a small number of other longstanding HN users, has the ability to downweight subthreads that are either too generic or offtopic. This is an experiment that we've been running for several months now. Actually the experiment has been quite successful—this sort of downweighting is the probably highest-leverage thing we've ever discovered for improving thread quality, and I'd like to find a way to extend the experiment to more users. IIRC, the downweight was correct in principle, because the subthread wasn't about the particular story, it was just a generic complaint about the general topic. We want those downweighted because, regardless of topic, they have a strong tendency to sit at the top of a thread, accumulating upvotes and choking out more specific and more interesting discussion. It was a mistake to downweight it, though—not because the subthread was good, but because the topic was a YC startup. By far the most important rule of HN moderation is that we intervene less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the topic (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). The user who did the downweighting didn't know that Fig was a YC startup, so it was an honest mistake. Certainly none of this has to do with trying to suppress criticism of YC or YC-funded companies. We know how to take our lumps and do so all the time. We also know that community good will is the only value that HN actually has, so doing anything to jeopardize that would be really dumb.
  - beckman466 4y ago
    > I think it’s very explicit that HN never intends to be a democracy really? any examples you can share?
  - FrenchDevRemote 4y ago
    there is a big difference between moderation and favoritism
threatofrain 4y ago
Talking about fun for the community with respect to a product discussion on a YC-backed company on a YC forum has complicated implications, as opposed intellectual curiosity on the matter of Go or Rust. I'm all for keeping Rust discussions fun and curious.
FrenchDevRemote 4y ago
that's not conspiracy sometimes you can get 2, 3, 5 times more upvotes than another post in half the time, if some HN admin/mod don't like your post then it's artificially ""downvoted"" and leave the front page(s) he's right to be angry and hostile

by monkin 4y ago

ushakov 4y ago

i'm not denying that i was in angry mood when commenting in the thread but the reason i've got angry is because the original comment i made was moved to the very last position not by downvoting, but by undemocratic rulers of HN the angry comments in thread came after that accident happened

stingraycharles 4y ago
I think it’s very explicit that HN never intends to be a democracy, and one of the techniques it uses is fairly strong moderation.
- spoils19 4y ago
  So the community espouses the free market of ideas, yet we're supposed to love it's strong moderation?
  - Kye 4y ago
    The community is made up of people from all walks of life from everywhere on the planet. It's impossible to speak of it in general terms. No, not everyone wants an ideological free-for-all.
    - eleet_hacker 4y ago
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  How does that make it ok? Mods moderate, ...and their moderation action caused this flood of negative reaction which wouldn't have been their otherwise. If it's valid to criticise a critic, it must also be valid to criticise a critic critic. The merits of a given argument or action do not rest on "because daddy said so". There is and must be a daddy, but no daddy is above critique themselves even though their job is to moderate others.
  - dang 4y ago
    The downweighting in the case of ushakov's comment wasn't done by a mod. It was done by a regular user who, along with a small number of other longstanding HN users, has the ability to downweight subthreads that are either too generic or offtopic. This is an experiment that we've been running for several months now. Actually the experiment has been quite successful—this sort of downweighting is the probably highest-leverage thing we've ever discovered for improving thread quality, and I'd like to find a way to extend the experiment to more users. IIRC, the downweight was correct in principle, because the subthread wasn't about the particular story, it was just a generic complaint about the general topic. We want those downweighted because, regardless of topic, they have a strong tendency to sit at the top of a thread, accumulating upvotes and choking out more specific and more interesting discussion. It was a mistake to downweight it, though—not because the subthread was good, but because the topic was a YC startup. By far the most important rule of HN moderation is that we intervene less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the topic (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). The user who did the downweighting didn't know that Fig was a YC startup, so it was an honest mistake. Certainly none of this has to do with trying to suppress criticism of YC or YC-funded companies. We know how to take our lumps and do so all the time. We also know that community good will is the only value that HN actually has, so doing anything to jeopardize that would be really dumb.
- beckman466 4y ago
  > I think it’s very explicit that HN never intends to be a democracy really? any examples you can share?
- FrenchDevRemote 4y ago
  there is a big difference between moderation and favoritism

threatofrain 4y ago

Talking about fun for the community with respect to a product discussion on a YC-backed company on a YC forum has complicated implications, as opposed intellectual curiosity on the matter of Go or Rust. I'm all for keeping Rust discussions fun and curious.

FrenchDevRemote 4y ago

that's not conspiracy sometimes you can get 2, 3, 5 times more upvotes than another post in half the time, if some HN admin/mod don't like your post then it's artificially ""downvoted"" and leave the front page(s) he's right to be angry and hostile