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Harmful by what standard? The moderation here is among the best on the web, what on earth are you talking about? Even if there are a tiny minority of toxic use

Harmful by what standard? The moderation here is among the best on the web, what on earth are you talking about? Even if there are a tiny minority of toxic users, blocking access to all seems like the issue may not be with HN... Edit: ok I missed some previous discussions, eg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36971867#37000629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36971867#37000629 for earlier similarly dubious generalisations and complaints providing context.

theptip 3y ago
I think what you're missing is that a tiny minority of toxic users (as perceived from your viewpoint) can easily be perceived as a high concentration of harassment from those that are on the receiving end of abuse. This asymmetry of harassment is a dynamic worth thinking about more broadly; for example, if only one in a thousand men cat-calls women, you might not even have any male friends that have ever cat-called, and yet that might mean a particularly attractive woman might pass a cat-caller many times per day. Small differences in the rate of cat-calling (1:1000 vs 1:2000) won't be detectable to you, but can represent a huge difference (once a day vs twice a day, say) to those sampling far more frequently from the distribution than you are. More specifically to the thread here, the question is not whether HN is well moderated, or whether toxicity is quite low-frequency from your perspective. The relevant question is whether the base-rate of anti-trans harassment is higher than in the general population. It's entirely possible (I think it's true) that people in this community are in general more civil to each other than on most of the internet, and I think the thoughtful moderation is a big part of that. But it's also possible (and I don't have any direct experience to claim whether it is or not, so this is just numbers to illustrate what's possible, not a claim of how things are) that at the tails of the distribution there's 10x more anti-trans harassment in the community too, and we'd simply not be in a good position to observe or measure it unless we were on the receiving end of it or auditing lots of comments very closely. Honestly, based on the tenor of responses when this specific topic comes up (quite different to the normal HN vibe IMO), that wouldn't surprise me either.
- mellosouls 3y ago
  I think what you're missing is that a tiny minority of toxic users (as perceived from your viewpoint) can easily be perceived as a high concentration of harassment from those that are on the receiving end of abuse I didn't miss it - that was partly my point; the the quantity of abuse is possibly a matter of perception which will necessarily be very influenced by the psychology and experiences of the victim; I agree that without being in that position it's not possible to have the same viewpoint, and certainly not the same raw hurt and related experiences. But it doesn't follow from being on the receiving end that there is a clearer, more neutral view of the percentages.
creato 3y ago
In my opinion, HN comments/users skew heavily towards cynicism/negativity. It may be a tiny minority, but I don’t think it’s a tiny minority of the most vocal users.
- mellosouls 3y ago
  That latter (more subtle) point is a possibility I suppose but even if it were the case it would likely reflect the unpleasant side of normal online psychology rather than anything particular to HN; and there is still a significant difference between cynicism/negativity and the bigotry and hostility claimed by the "harmful" comment and linked context. If all such reflex internet-negativity is being wrongly interpreted as representative bigotry by an external party that's still not a HN issue; and the moderation complaint is still very misjudged.
saagarjha 3y ago
Just because the moderation is good doesn’t mean that they’re always right, or resourced to do a good job in every case.

theptip 3y ago

I think what you're missing is that a tiny minority of toxic users (as perceived from your viewpoint) can easily be perceived as a high concentration of harassment from those that are on the receiving end of abuse. This asymmetry of harassment is a dynamic worth thinking about more broadly; for example, if only one in a thousand men cat-calls women, you might not even have any male friends that have ever cat-called, and yet that might mean a particularly attractive woman might pass a cat-caller many times per day. Small differences in the rate of cat-calling (1:1000 vs 1:2000) won't be detectable to you, but can represent a huge difference (once a day vs twice a day, say) to those sampling far more frequently from the distribution than you are. More specifically to the thread here, the question is not whether HN is well moderated, or whether toxicity is quite low-frequency from your perspective. The relevant question is whether the base-rate of anti-trans harassment is higher than in the general population. It's entirely possible (I think it's true) that people in this community are in general more civil to each other than on most of the internet, and I think the thoughtful moderation is a big part of that. But it's also possible (and I don't have any direct experience to claim whether it is or not, so this is just numbers to illustrate what's possible, not a claim of how things are) that at the tails of the distribution there's 10x more anti-trans harassment in the community too, and we'd simply not be in a good position to observe or measure it unless we were on the receiving end of it or auditing lots of comments very closely. Honestly, based on the tenor of responses when this specific topic comes up (quite different to the normal HN vibe IMO), that wouldn't surprise me either.

mellosouls 3y ago
I think what you're missing is that a tiny minority of toxic users (as perceived from your viewpoint) can easily be perceived as a high concentration of harassment from those that are on the receiving end of abuse I didn't miss it - that was partly my point; the the quantity of abuse is possibly a matter of perception which will necessarily be very influenced by the psychology and experiences of the victim; I agree that without being in that position it's not possible to have the same viewpoint, and certainly not the same raw hurt and related experiences. But it doesn't follow from being on the receiving end that there is a clearer, more neutral view of the percentages.

creato 3y ago

In my opinion, HN comments/users skew heavily towards cynicism/negativity. It may be a tiny minority, but I don’t think it’s a tiny minority of the most vocal users.

mellosouls 3y ago
That latter (more subtle) point is a possibility I suppose but even if it were the case it would likely reflect the unpleasant side of normal online psychology rather than anything particular to HN; and there is still a significant difference between cynicism/negativity and the bigotry and hostility claimed by the "harmful" comment and linked context. If all such reflex internet-negativity is being wrongly interpreted as representative bigotry by an external party that's still not a HN issue; and the moderation complaint is still very misjudged.

saagarjha 3y ago

Just because the moderation is good doesn’t mean that they’re always right, or resourced to do a good job in every case.