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But this is a lie, "dang". Your mythical "site rules", don't prevent people here to justify terrorism inside Russia, call to violence against Russian people, o

But this is a lie, "dang". Your mythical "site rules", don't prevent people here to justify terrorism inside Russia, call to violence against Russian people, or insults of ethnic character. Just as they don't prevent people from doing it on any other major western public forum. What they do prevent, on the other hand, is expressing point of view which is not aligned, at least partially, to the "point of view" of your state department. There might be no offensive speech in the comments you block, they are just politically unacceptable.

filoleg 3y ago
I don't know what you are on, I admitted in multiple comments on HN over the past year that I was russian. Never got any "calls to violence" or "insults of ethnic character" or heard people justifying terrorism inside russia in replies. The few attempts at insults against russians that I've seen on HN (not even against me, but somewhere in deep down in random related threads) were either extremely downvoted or flagged. If you said "on reddit", that would have been a different story, especially on their large frontpage subs. But reddit comments in general tend to be extremely moronic at times on all sides, so that's not really a surprise.
dang 3y ago
You're right - rules don't prevent people from breaking the rules. I'm just telling you what the rules are, and what their intended spirit is. I'm not telling you that every commenter conforms to them—that's definitely not the case, as you're describing. When we see comments breaking the rules, we ask them not to (and ban users who don't stop). But we only see a small minority of what gets posted to HN (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=likeliest%20explanation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). There's another aspect. HN can't be immune from macro trends (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20trends%20macro&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Although HN is a highly international site (only 50% US if not less), its demographics are majority Western, so discourse here will inevitably be dominated by Western views regardless of how we moderate. Moderation power is limited. That puts users with non-Western views in a delicate position. All I can tell you is that as moderators, we're on the side of including minorities, not excluding them. I've defended countless minority users when the majority is ganging up on them, and that will be the case for as long as I'm moderating HN, whenever I see it happening. But we need users from those groups to do their part as well. What happens all too easily and often is that users from the minority groups, feeling stung by the majority, lash back aggressively in a way that breaks the rules. This puts the moderators in a double bind: we can't condone breaking the rules, and we also don't want to exclude minority users, making the minority even smaller. The only solution I know is to persuade you (i.e. you personally and others in this position) that it isn't in your interest to break the rules like that. Your reasons for doing it, and the emotions behind it, are understandable—but the effect of such posts is to discredit your own views (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). This marginalizes you even further—it just gives the majority fresh confirmation that you're wrong and they're right. This doesn't improve your position. What you should do instead—though I know it is not easy—is strictly, scrupulously, meticulously stick to the rules while laying out your position. Let others be the ones to become aggressive and call names and flame. Who knows, maybe they won't! and then you can have the respectful conversation that HN is supposed to be for. But if they do, at least it will be they who are discrediting their own position, rather than you.

filoleg 3y ago

I don't know what you are on, I admitted in multiple comments on HN over the past year that I was russian. Never got any "calls to violence" or "insults of ethnic character" or heard people justifying terrorism inside russia in replies. The few attempts at insults against russians that I've seen on HN (not even against me, but somewhere in deep down in random related threads) were either extremely downvoted or flagged. If you said "on reddit", that would have been a different story, especially on their large frontpage subs. But reddit comments in general tend to be extremely moronic at times on all sides, so that's not really a surprise.

dang 3y ago

You're right - rules don't prevent people from breaking the rules. I'm just telling you what the rules are, and what their intended spirit is. I'm not telling you that every commenter conforms to them—that's definitely not the case, as you're describing. When we see comments breaking the rules, we ask them not to (and ban users who don't stop). But we only see a small minority of what gets posted to HN (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=likeliest%20explanation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). There's another aspect. HN can't be immune from macro trends (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20trends%20macro&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Although HN is a highly international site (only 50% US if not less), its demographics are majority Western, so discourse here will inevitably be dominated by Western views regardless of how we moderate. Moderation power is limited. That puts users with non-Western views in a delicate position. All I can tell you is that as moderators, we're on the side of including minorities, not excluding them. I've defended countless minority users when the majority is ganging up on them, and that will be the case for as long as I'm moderating HN, whenever I see it happening. But we need users from those groups to do their part as well. What happens all too easily and often is that users from the minority groups, feeling stung by the majority, lash back aggressively in a way that breaks the rules. This puts the moderators in a double bind: we can't condone breaking the rules, and we also don't want to exclude minority users, making the minority even smaller. The only solution I know is to persuade you (i.e. you personally and others in this position) that it isn't in your interest to break the rules like that. Your reasons for doing it, and the emotions behind it, are understandable—but the effect of such posts is to discredit your own views (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). This marginalizes you even further—it just gives the majority fresh confirmation that you're wrong and they're right. This doesn't improve your position. What you should do instead—though I know it is not easy—is strictly, scrupulously, meticulously stick to the rules while laying out your position. Let others be the ones to become aggressive and call names and flame. Who knows, maybe they won't! and then you can have the respectful conversation that HN is supposed to be for. But if they do, at least it will be they who are discrediting their own position, rather than you.