4 ms·

Well, the point is that we need to realize there is always a human being on the other side of the comment / post. On Twitter that might not always be true. And

Well, the point is that we need to realize there is always a human being on the other side of the comment / post. On Twitter that might not always be true. And these players may have been created for the sole purpose to troll / egg / incite.

klodolph 4y ago
I think this is kind of flipped around. On some level the difference between bot and troll is irrelevant, because I care about account behavior. Just like how at some level it is irrelevant whether the behavior is intentional or born of ignorance. Moderation is there to control behavior and content, not to control people. The primary thing people on HN don't understand about Twitter is the personalized feed. On HN, if someone makes low-quality posts, everyone sees it until it gets downvoted into oblivion. On Twitter, if someone's making posts you don't want to see, you block or mute the account and see less of it. What makes a post "low-quality" is inherently subjective, but HN doesn't offer any personalization. I'd characterize HN's approach as being like a little Puritan village in the 17th century, where community members get together to decide someone's fate. Twitter is like a modern city... if you don't like the neighborhood, go somewhere else. Yes, there are trolls on Twitter. But you don't have to see them on your feed. The impact of an individual troll account on Twitter is much lower than the impact of an individual troll account on HN. My general feeling is that very few people actually understand how community management works, even in broad strokes. Certainly not me. As a result, behavior which might be a red flag on one forum may just be part of the ecosystem in another forum.
- kergonath 4y ago
  > On HN, if someone makes low-quality posts, everyone sees it until it gets downvoted into oblivion. I very, very rarely see that in merely low-quality posts. Those that are actually downvoted enough to be hidden are hidden for good reasons. I am sure you could find a handful, but I have never seen a hidden post about which I regretted it was not visible (I’d be curious to see how many you can find). It usually is proper bullying or racist rants. Now, stories get flagged regularly because they go against the grain, and there are several of them I wish we could have discussed. But looking at the new stories, the flagging mechanism gets rid of much more spam than unpopular posts. Anyway, I am not really willing to buy that without some statistics. > As a result, behavior which might be a red flag on one forum may just be part of the ecosystem in another forum. That is certainly true. But I find HN to be on the good side in that respect. Much better than the anything goes of *chan, the constant shitposting of mainstream subreddits (though there are some subreddits I love with great communities), or the constant passive aggressiveness of ./ and el reg (at least when I frequented those; I never looked back after leaving). Ars is nice as well, but a huge troll magnet.
- simiones 4y ago
  > On Twitter, if someone's making posts you don't want to see, you block or mute the account and see less of it. The biggest problem with this idea is that there are tweets that you may have legitimate reasons not to want others to see. If someone is smearing you online in some way (revenge porn, lies about your actions, doxxing, stoking others to attack you, etc), then it doesn't really help you to hide these tweets from your feed, you need to have some recourse to hide them from others' feeds to actually achieve something. Of course, this gets complicated often because it's not easy to tell apart lies about your actions from truths about your actions for example, and any mechanism you have to protect you from someone spreading false hurtful information is also a tool that someone else can use to prevent others spreading true hurtful information. Perhaps the court system is the only good way to solve it - I don't have an answer. But this problem also can't simply be ignored by hiding that person from your feed.

klodolph 4y ago

I think this is kind of flipped around. On some level the difference between bot and troll is irrelevant, because I care about account behavior. Just like how at some level it is irrelevant whether the behavior is intentional or born of ignorance. Moderation is there to control behavior and content, not to control people. The primary thing people on HN don't understand about Twitter is the personalized feed. On HN, if someone makes low-quality posts, everyone sees it until it gets downvoted into oblivion. On Twitter, if someone's making posts you don't want to see, you block or mute the account and see less of it. What makes a post "low-quality" is inherently subjective, but HN doesn't offer any personalization. I'd characterize HN's approach as being like a little Puritan village in the 17th century, where community members get together to decide someone's fate. Twitter is like a modern city... if you don't like the neighborhood, go somewhere else. Yes, there are trolls on Twitter. But you don't have to see them on your feed. The impact of an individual troll account on Twitter is much lower than the impact of an individual troll account on HN. My general feeling is that very few people actually understand how community management works, even in broad strokes. Certainly not me. As a result, behavior which might be a red flag on one forum may just be part of the ecosystem in another forum.

kergonath 4y ago
> On HN, if someone makes low-quality posts, everyone sees it until it gets downvoted into oblivion. I very, very rarely see that in merely low-quality posts. Those that are actually downvoted enough to be hidden are hidden for good reasons. I am sure you could find a handful, but I have never seen a hidden post about which I regretted it was not visible (I’d be curious to see how many you can find). It usually is proper bullying or racist rants. Now, stories get flagged regularly because they go against the grain, and there are several of them I wish we could have discussed. But looking at the new stories, the flagging mechanism gets rid of much more spam than unpopular posts. Anyway, I am not really willing to buy that without some statistics. > As a result, behavior which might be a red flag on one forum may just be part of the ecosystem in another forum. That is certainly true. But I find HN to be on the good side in that respect. Much better than the anything goes of *chan, the constant shitposting of mainstream subreddits (though there are some subreddits I love with great communities), or the constant passive aggressiveness of ./ and el reg (at least when I frequented those; I never looked back after leaving). Ars is nice as well, but a huge troll magnet.
simiones 4y ago
> On Twitter, if someone's making posts you don't want to see, you block or mute the account and see less of it. The biggest problem with this idea is that there are tweets that you may have legitimate reasons not to want others to see. If someone is smearing you online in some way (revenge porn, lies about your actions, doxxing, stoking others to attack you, etc), then it doesn't really help you to hide these tweets from your feed, you need to have some recourse to hide them from others' feeds to actually achieve something. Of course, this gets complicated often because it's not easy to tell apart lies about your actions from truths about your actions for example, and any mechanism you have to protect you from someone spreading false hurtful information is also a tool that someone else can use to prevent others spreading true hurtful information. Perhaps the court system is the only good way to solve it - I don't have an answer. But this problem also can't simply be ignored by hiding that person from your feed.