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I get a very different sense from the reading of his comments to users; curt and inconsiderate. He tends to make declarations about behavior that sound objecti

I get a very different sense from the reading of his comments to users; curt and inconsiderate. He tends to make declarations about behavior that sound objective but are really just his very casual read of a situation, and there’s no appeal or redress possible. Additionally, he tends to favor the original aggressor, ignoring the concept of instigation to fix the proximate cause of the negative interactions here. Don’t get caught punching second, in other words. It’s classic utilitarianism; if 1% of users get shat upon by dang, and 99% in any way benefit from his negative behavior, I suppose the folks here would be alright with that?

lolinder 4y ago
> Additionally, he tends to favor the original aggressor, ignoring the concept of instigation to fix the proximate cause of the negative interactions here. Don’t get caught punching second, in other words. Can you give an example? I just went through dang's comments in the last few days and found nothing of the sort, and it has not been my experience at all, unless posting an unpopular opinion counts as instigation. Dang's pattern, every time I've been witness to his moderation, is to cut the first comment that descends into incivility or flaming. Conversations on HN sometimes get heated. Some people take people disagreeing with them as a personal attack and quickly descend into actual personal attacks in response. Those people may feel like they're being singled out by dang, but it's because they actually are misbehaving.
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  Look at his post history, you can see plenty of examples. A pattern he follows very commonly is seen here [0]: "Can you stop doing $thing?" However, it's dang's opinion that $thing is occurring, and he makes zero effort to understand why $thing could even be happening, and further entertains zero challenges to his interpretation of what has taken place. It's, "stop doing $thing, which is definitely happening, or else I will ban you." Here's another good example of dang handling moderation poorly [1]: he spends zero time explaining the situation, zero time listening to the perspective of the "accused", and simply, curtly, dismisses that person from the site. Ironically, dang's intervention is often the most toxic behavior in a comment chain, and these examples are what I found in just the past two hours. There are thousands, or more, people treated this way, and instead of concern, praise is constantly dumped on him, like what he's doing is some incredible or even desirable behavior! The assumption is the site is better off without these people he treats poorly on it, but I doubt any rigor has been placed on that assumption whatsoever. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039759 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039501
  - yesenadam 4y ago
    Your complaints are totally unreasonable and sound ridiculous to me. "dang's intervention is often the most toxic behavior in a comment chain" is laughable. If you look more into dang's comment history, he has often explained at length about the kind of issues you link to. Often his comments link to a whole lot of previous long explanations. I've spent hours down those rabbit holes, and it's the most impressive, insightful writing I've seen in my years on HN. I was 'danged' once, after I angrily responded to someone who made an outrageous comment to me, attacking me strongly for saying cheating was bad. Dang objected to my comment. I said, what the other guy said was much worse! Dang hadn't even read the other guy's comment, which seemed so unfair. He explained to me that it doesn't matter what the other guy said. "Punching second" or in any order, is not ok on here. Read the comment guidelines. He said that being on HN is a continual exercise is not being triggered, in not commenting while angry. They were wise words which I think greatly improved my HN comments, or at least I don't do those triggered, snarky, cutting responses any more, or almost never. No matter what the other guy said. Silence is often the best response, or the only good one. That someone else is being an asshole on here is no reason to join them. You are apparently fairly new here, and seem to have little idea of the massive number of comments written on HN each day. I looked at the first couple of pages of your recent comments, and most of them have a very unpleasant, hostile tone. You are in no position to criticize dang. Read the "In comments" section of the guidelines, the part starting "Be kind. Don't be snarky." A lot of your comments break them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - TameAntelope 4y ago
      Haha, your comment is exactly the comment I'd expect to get moderated, but won't because it's long and dang won't read it (and he is spread too thin). Any comment citing "newguidelines.html" should probably get flagged for review, for example. I also am not new here, but imagine why I might seem to be...
beachy 4y ago
It should be easy for you to link to examples substantiating this?

lolinder 4y ago

> Additionally, he tends to favor the original aggressor, ignoring the concept of instigation to fix the proximate cause of the negative interactions here. Don’t get caught punching second, in other words. Can you give an example? I just went through dang's comments in the last few days and found nothing of the sort, and it has not been my experience at all, unless posting an unpopular opinion counts as instigation. Dang's pattern, every time I've been witness to his moderation, is to cut the first comment that descends into incivility or flaming. Conversations on HN sometimes get heated. Some people take people disagreeing with them as a personal attack and quickly descend into actual personal attacks in response. Those people may feel like they're being singled out by dang, but it's because they actually are misbehaving.

TameAntelope 4y ago
Look at his post history, you can see plenty of examples. A pattern he follows very commonly is seen here [0]: "Can you stop doing $thing?" However, it's dang's opinion that $thing is occurring, and he makes zero effort to understand why $thing could even be happening, and further entertains zero challenges to his interpretation of what has taken place. It's, "stop doing $thing, which is definitely happening, or else I will ban you." Here's another good example of dang handling moderation poorly [1]: he spends zero time explaining the situation, zero time listening to the perspective of the "accused", and simply, curtly, dismisses that person from the site. Ironically, dang's intervention is often the most toxic behavior in a comment chain, and these examples are what I found in just the past two hours. There are thousands, or more, people treated this way, and instead of concern, praise is constantly dumped on him, like what he's doing is some incredible or even desirable behavior! The assumption is the site is better off without these people he treats poorly on it, but I doubt any rigor has been placed on that assumption whatsoever. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039759 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32039501
- yesenadam 4y ago
  Your complaints are totally unreasonable and sound ridiculous to me. "dang's intervention is often the most toxic behavior in a comment chain" is laughable. If you look more into dang's comment history, he has often explained at length about the kind of issues you link to. Often his comments link to a whole lot of previous long explanations. I've spent hours down those rabbit holes, and it's the most impressive, insightful writing I've seen in my years on HN. I was 'danged' once, after I angrily responded to someone who made an outrageous comment to me, attacking me strongly for saying cheating was bad. Dang objected to my comment. I said, what the other guy said was much worse! Dang hadn't even read the other guy's comment, which seemed so unfair. He explained to me that it doesn't matter what the other guy said. "Punching second" or in any order, is not ok on here. Read the comment guidelines. He said that being on HN is a continual exercise is not being triggered, in not commenting while angry. They were wise words which I think greatly improved my HN comments, or at least I don't do those triggered, snarky, cutting responses any more, or almost never. No matter what the other guy said. Silence is often the best response, or the only good one. That someone else is being an asshole on here is no reason to join them. You are apparently fairly new here, and seem to have little idea of the massive number of comments written on HN each day. I looked at the first couple of pages of your recent comments, and most of them have a very unpleasant, hostile tone. You are in no position to criticize dang. Read the "In comments" section of the guidelines, the part starting "Be kind. Don't be snarky." A lot of your comments break them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - TameAntelope 4y ago
    Haha, your comment is exactly the comment I'd expect to get moderated, but won't because it's long and dang won't read it (and he is spread too thin). Any comment citing "newguidelines.html" should probably get flagged for review, for example. I also am not new here, but imagine why I might seem to be...

beachy 4y ago

It should be easy for you to link to examples substantiating this?