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> First, not every member of a website is trying to be part of its community, so it's unfair to expect the community to care about them in return. The issue wi

> First, not every member of a website is trying to be part of its community, so it's unfair to expect the community to care about them in return. The issue with this is that who gets decide what these people think? I think communities need rules, but on HN for example they are extremely strict. Essentially, "no politics, no controversy" ???

krapp 4y ago
Why is that an issue? Contrary to popular opinion, no site is a public commons. Rather every site regardless of its policies is a petty fiefdom run at the whim of the site owners. Hacker News seeks a specific culture and a high bar of content quality and it aggressively curates and moderates towards that end, with freedom of speech being secondary to the goal of reducing entropy, and thus the slide into Eternal September. If you don't like that you can make your own Hacker News with blackjack and hookers elsewhere, or just go to Reddit or 4chan and find all the politics and controversy you want. Both approaches have value, and there's room on the web for both.
- roflyear 4y ago
  It is an issue b/c that's a huge range of topics, and it isn't possible to know where the line is. Your line, as a reasonable human, may not meet up with mine, which may not meet up with dang's, etc.. and then you have issues, because no one really knows the rules. Your line may be really close to dang's, so maybe you think everything is OK, because your judgement has been sound. Mine clearly has not been, tho I haven't TRIED to step on any toes, but I can't post here much b/c I upset dang. I am not saying HN shouldn't be allowed to limit things this way, I'm saying I think it's stupid. > Hacker News seeks a specific culture and a high bar of content quality and it aggressively curates and moderates towards that end But HN doesn't do this. HN moderates and curates to what they want, there's a lot of judgement involved. There's plenty of low quality posts here. The issue is what I think is low quality is not what HN mods think is low quality (that isn't an issue because I think it, but the concept is the problem). What I think is low quality is not what you think is low quality, etc... this is OK: it's only bad, in my opinion, when a select few people get to decide that for everyone. Maybe a certain portion of the rest of the users will agree with it and it will be OK for them, but... it's just not a just system. I'm not talking about people spamming porn or something to the forum, btw. But "porn" has a pretty clearly defined meaning, and you can also just say "no NSFW posts" - which I also think is fine! As long as people understand the rule! The rules I have an issue with are "no politics" when in reality it is "no politics that we think may upset people, or something - we don't tell you exactly what we mean, we'll figure it out and never tell you, but don't step on the landmine!!" You can see that is a problem, no?

krapp 4y ago

Why is that an issue? Contrary to popular opinion, no site is a public commons. Rather every site regardless of its policies is a petty fiefdom run at the whim of the site owners. Hacker News seeks a specific culture and a high bar of content quality and it aggressively curates and moderates towards that end, with freedom of speech being secondary to the goal of reducing entropy, and thus the slide into Eternal September. If you don't like that you can make your own Hacker News with blackjack and hookers elsewhere, or just go to Reddit or 4chan and find all the politics and controversy you want. Both approaches have value, and there's room on the web for both.

roflyear 4y ago
It is an issue b/c that's a huge range of topics, and it isn't possible to know where the line is. Your line, as a reasonable human, may not meet up with mine, which may not meet up with dang's, etc.. and then you have issues, because no one really knows the rules. Your line may be really close to dang's, so maybe you think everything is OK, because your judgement has been sound. Mine clearly has not been, tho I haven't TRIED to step on any toes, but I can't post here much b/c I upset dang. I am not saying HN shouldn't be allowed to limit things this way, I'm saying I think it's stupid. > Hacker News seeks a specific culture and a high bar of content quality and it aggressively curates and moderates towards that end But HN doesn't do this. HN moderates and curates to what they want, there's a lot of judgement involved. There's plenty of low quality posts here. The issue is what I think is low quality is not what HN mods think is low quality (that isn't an issue because I think it, but the concept is the problem). What I think is low quality is not what you think is low quality, etc... this is OK: it's only bad, in my opinion, when a select few people get to decide that for everyone. Maybe a certain portion of the rest of the users will agree with it and it will be OK for them, but... it's just not a just system. I'm not talking about people spamming porn or something to the forum, btw. But "porn" has a pretty clearly defined meaning, and you can also just say "no NSFW posts" - which I also think is fine! As long as people understand the rule! The rules I have an issue with are "no politics" when in reality it is "no politics that we think may upset people, or something - we don't tell you exactly what we mean, we'll figure it out and never tell you, but don't step on the landmine!!" You can see that is a problem, no?