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You’re right, obviously the best way to secure the community was to obscure the votes of people that were upvoting toxic content instead of the mods/community j

You’re right, obviously the best way to secure the community was to obscure the votes of people that were upvoting toxic content instead of the mods/community just publicly tagging and flagging the related undesirable content and penalizing the voting weights of anyone upvoting that content. If votes being public impacts voting patterns, listing top users, having usernames publicly associated with comments, being able to follow given user’s comments, etc — for sure does too. What’s the difference?

tptacek 4y ago
You're arguing here as if there is an argument to be had. I'm trying to help you understand that there is no such argument. Your claims have been considered and rejected hundreds of times over the last 10 years. It'd behoove you to consult the search bar below and read some of those old discussions. This isn't a case where the community made a rash decision and just doesn't realize how problematic it is; you're talking about what is probably the single most deliberate community management decision HN has ever made. It's not going to change. A moment later Maybe it'll help if you get your head around the goal of HN. There are a bunch of things you personally seem to want to accomplish with HN. But HN itself has just one goal: to nurture curious conversation. Other sites have other, equally valid goals: propagating the news as quickly as possible, or relentless focus on a particular topic, or getting the best Q&A pairs to the top of Google's search results. HN, though: curious conversation. That's the whole ballgame. Anything that drags on curious conversation is a non-starter on HN, even if it might make a bunch of things better for you. We don't have to guess about whether making comment scores available is a drag on curious conversations; it manifestly was, for years. People have an innate, visceral reaction to comment scores they feel are unjust, and they talk about them, and those conversations choke the landscape like kudzu. A lot of things about HN make more sense when you accept the premise of the site, and understand that HN will make most sacrifices it can come up with to optimize for that premise.
- O__________O 4y ago
  Just to be clear, intentionally not responding, since you repeatedly in my opinion ignored my points and contrary to your claims, did not engage me out of intellectual curiosity.
  - threatofrain 4y ago
    I think tptacek is saying something meaningful in suggesting that there's already a long history to this discussion. Personally I disagree that the soul of HN is about curiosity. If you removed all the explicit comments about curiosity and showed the site to new tech people, I don't think there would be consensus on curiosity. If you showed a bunch of people the Rust subreddit, there would be consensus that it's soul is Rust. Personally I see this site as the Reddit of tech with 20% of its flavor coming from YC companies. That is how it behaves, as opposed what moderators say the site is about.
    - pvg 4y ago
      'curious conversation' is a much loftier, woolier and syntheticier goal than 'Rust' and HN strives towards it imperfectly. The measure, though, is 'does this or that change bring us closer to it' not 'can people unfamiliar with the site achieve mindmeld with dang by staring at the front page'.

tptacek 4y ago

You're arguing here as if there is an argument to be had. I'm trying to help you understand that there is no such argument. Your claims have been considered and rejected hundreds of times over the last 10 years. It'd behoove you to consult the search bar below and read some of those old discussions. This isn't a case where the community made a rash decision and just doesn't realize how problematic it is; you're talking about what is probably the single most deliberate community management decision HN has ever made. It's not going to change. A moment later Maybe it'll help if you get your head around the goal of HN. There are a bunch of things you personally seem to want to accomplish with HN. But HN itself has just one goal: to nurture curious conversation. Other sites have other, equally valid goals: propagating the news as quickly as possible, or relentless focus on a particular topic, or getting the best Q&A pairs to the top of Google's search results. HN, though: curious conversation. That's the whole ballgame. Anything that drags on curious conversation is a non-starter on HN, even if it might make a bunch of things better for you. We don't have to guess about whether making comment scores available is a drag on curious conversations; it manifestly was, for years. People have an innate, visceral reaction to comment scores they feel are unjust, and they talk about them, and those conversations choke the landscape like kudzu. A lot of things about HN make more sense when you accept the premise of the site, and understand that HN will make most sacrifices it can come up with to optimize for that premise.

O__________O 4y ago
Just to be clear, intentionally not responding, since you repeatedly in my opinion ignored my points and contrary to your claims, did not engage me out of intellectual curiosity.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  I think tptacek is saying something meaningful in suggesting that there's already a long history to this discussion. Personally I disagree that the soul of HN is about curiosity. If you removed all the explicit comments about curiosity and showed the site to new tech people, I don't think there would be consensus on curiosity. If you showed a bunch of people the Rust subreddit, there would be consensus that it's soul is Rust. Personally I see this site as the Reddit of tech with 20% of its flavor coming from YC companies. That is how it behaves, as opposed what moderators say the site is about.
  - pvg 4y ago
    'curious conversation' is a much loftier, woolier and syntheticier goal than 'Rust' and HN strives towards it imperfectly. The measure, though, is 'does this or that change bring us closer to it' not 'can people unfamiliar with the site achieve mindmeld with dang by staring at the front page'.