3 ms·

It's against the guidelines to point out moderation decisions. But it's relevant to the point I'm making. This is a thoughtful, carefully-worded argument that

It's against the guidelines to point out moderation decisions. But it's relevant to the point I'm making. This is a thoughtful, carefully-worded argument that has been repeatedly upvoted and downvoted (the downvotes seem to come in pairs -- admin action?) The moderation of this comment allows anonymous people, lurking in the shadows, to make decisions about what other people read, with no accountability or consequence. It is forbidden to talk about the moderation decisions, yet the moderation game mechanic is, in 2023, no longer fit-for-purpose, given the new realities of the political climate. The moderation mechanic is the story, and is no longer able to provide fair, reasonable, accountable crowdsourced moderation. A relic of less polarized times. Prophecy: Hacker News will either change, or perish. The usual deal, presented to organisms and organizations alike. Preserving its heirloom-varietal forum interface into the coming decade will be popular (in a decade increasingly stricken with nostalgia,) but also lethal. Thus, I predict the demise of Hacker News. The website will of course persist for as long as it remains useful to Y Combinator, but as the natural center-of-gravity for all of tech culture? Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei.

zamadatix 3y ago
It's far more likely the majority of users just are interested in these comments and don't want to see them, so don't, than the moderators are actively downvoting your comments, and many others, throughout the day. Those that are interested, for whatever reason, tend to have showdead enabled (I do). It's a bit of a "opt to what you want to see" system, not a "you only get our filter" system. The hard part is convincing others what you want to say is what they want to see here.
- 1attice 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    I think you flipped a right/left handed towards the end, but I follow what you're trying to say. The thing is most don't believe in a right where everyone has to listen to anything said with equal opportunity. It definitely is a tyranny of the majority, but that doesn't mean a tyranny of the minority, where anything said should get equal exposure regardless of how unpopular it is, is inherently more correct, or necessarily better. That's why "The hard part is convincing others what you want to say is what they want to see here." It's not that they need to read everything, it's that they need to see those things they typically want to ignore as something worth them spending time on. No amount of moderation will make people spend time reading things they aren't interested in reading. Part of this is you end up with communities with different focus, and that's usually the way these kinds of differences co-exist in the same world at scale. Once the communities get large enough, they are in some way forced to find neutral ways to interact. Typically this happens more in the real world than on the internet. The only time this really breaks is when the divider isn't related to content, rather some arbitrary attribute unrelated to it. E.g. if a conversation about the best quality paints ignores someone because of their handedness. The content of what they were saying had nothing to do with the exclusion so people want to protect against those kind of exclusions. The same feeling does not extend to those that want to bring a content reason for exclusion into the conversation, e.g. someone that constantly talks about how paint is a conspiracy by $BigCorp and can't talk about paint without always bringing it up. In that case the person needs to find people interested in talking about $BigCorp paint conspiracies, or a better way to engage others, not a moderator to force people to listen to them. If they do get the latter, people will just stop showing up... not suddenly start listening.

zamadatix 3y ago

It's far more likely the majority of users just are interested in these comments and don't want to see them, so don't, than the moderators are actively downvoting your comments, and many others, throughout the day. Those that are interested, for whatever reason, tend to have showdead enabled (I do). It's a bit of a "opt to what you want to see" system, not a "you only get our filter" system. The hard part is convincing others what you want to say is what they want to see here.

1attice 3y ago
[flagged]
- zamadatix 3y ago
  I think you flipped a right/left handed towards the end, but I follow what you're trying to say. The thing is most don't believe in a right where everyone has to listen to anything said with equal opportunity. It definitely is a tyranny of the majority, but that doesn't mean a tyranny of the minority, where anything said should get equal exposure regardless of how unpopular it is, is inherently more correct, or necessarily better. That's why "The hard part is convincing others what you want to say is what they want to see here." It's not that they need to read everything, it's that they need to see those things they typically want to ignore as something worth them spending time on. No amount of moderation will make people spend time reading things they aren't interested in reading. Part of this is you end up with communities with different focus, and that's usually the way these kinds of differences co-exist in the same world at scale. Once the communities get large enough, they are in some way forced to find neutral ways to interact. Typically this happens more in the real world than on the internet. The only time this really breaks is when the divider isn't related to content, rather some arbitrary attribute unrelated to it. E.g. if a conversation about the best quality paints ignores someone because of their handedness. The content of what they were saying had nothing to do with the exclusion so people want to protect against those kind of exclusions. The same feeling does not extend to those that want to bring a content reason for exclusion into the conversation, e.g. someone that constantly talks about how paint is a conspiracy by $BigCorp and can't talk about paint without always bringing it up. In that case the person needs to find people interested in talking about $BigCorp paint conspiracies, or a better way to engage others, not a moderator to force people to listen to them. If they do get the latter, people will just stop showing up... not suddenly start listening.