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HN engages in the latter. For example, user votes are weighted based on their alignment with the moderation team's view of good content.

akira2501 2y ago
I don't understand your explanation. Do you mean just voting itself? That's not controlled or managed by HN. That's just more "user generated content." That posts get hidden or flagged due to thresholding is non-discriminatory and not _individually_ controlled by the staff here. Or.. are you suggesting there's more to how this works? Is dang watching votes and then making decisions based on those votes? "Editorial control" is more of a term of art and has a narrower definition then you're allowing for.
- empressplay 2y ago
  There's things like 'second chance' where the editorial team can re-up posts they feel didn't get a fair shake the first time around, sometimes if a post gets too 'hot' they will cool it down -- all of this is understandable but unfortunately does mean they are actively moderating content and thus are responsible for all of it.
- krapp 2y ago
  Dang has been open about voting being only one part of the way HN works, and that manual moderator intervention does occur. They will downweigh the votes of "problem" accounts, manually adjust the order of the frontpage, and do whatever they feel necessary to maintain a high signal to noise ratio.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  The HN moderation team makes a lot of editorial choices, which is what gives HN its specific character. For example, highly politically charged posts are manually moderated and kept off the main page regardless of votes, with limited exceptions entirely up to the judgement of the editors. For example, content about the wars in Ukraine and Israel is not allowed on the mainpage except on rare occasions. dang has talked a lot about the reasoning behind this. The same applies to comments on HN. Comments are not moderated based purely on legal or certain general "good manners" grounds, they are moderated to keep a certain kind of discourse level. For example, shallow jokes or meme comments are not generally allowed on HN. Comments that start discussing controversial topics, even if civil, are also discouraged when they are not on-topic. Overall, HN is very much curated in the direction of a newspaper "letter to the editor" section, then more algorithmic and hands-off like the Facebook wall or TikTok feed. So there is no doubt whatsoever, I believe, that HN would be considered responsible for user content (and is, in fact, already pretty good at policing that in my experience, at least on the front page).
  - zahlman 2y ago
    > The HN moderation team makes a lot of editorial choices, which is what gives HN its specific character. For example, highly politically charged posts are manually moderated and kept off the main page regardless of votes, with limited exceptions entirely up to the judgement of the editors. For example, content about the wars in Ukraine and Israel is not allowed on the mainpage except on rare occasions. dang has talked a lot about the reasoning behind this. This is meaningfully different in kind from only excluding posts that reflect certain perspectives on such a conflict. Maintaining topicality is not imposing a bias.
    - mr_toad 2y ago
      > This is meaningfully different in kind from only excluding posts that reflect certain perspectives on such a conflict. Maintaining topicality is not imposing a bias. Maintaining topicality is literally a bias. Excluding posts that reflect certain perspectives is censorship.

akira2501 2y ago

I don't understand your explanation. Do you mean just voting itself? That's not controlled or managed by HN. That's just more "user generated content." That posts get hidden or flagged due to thresholding is non-discriminatory and not _individually_ controlled by the staff here. Or.. are you suggesting there's more to how this works? Is dang watching votes and then making decisions based on those votes? "Editorial control" is more of a term of art and has a narrower definition then you're allowing for.

empressplay 2y ago
There's things like 'second chance' where the editorial team can re-up posts they feel didn't get a fair shake the first time around, sometimes if a post gets too 'hot' they will cool it down -- all of this is understandable but unfortunately does mean they are actively moderating content and thus are responsible for all of it.
krapp 2y ago
Dang has been open about voting being only one part of the way HN works, and that manual moderator intervention does occur. They will downweigh the votes of "problem" accounts, manually adjust the order of the frontpage, and do whatever they feel necessary to maintain a high signal to noise ratio.
tsimionescu 2y ago
The HN moderation team makes a lot of editorial choices, which is what gives HN its specific character. For example, highly politically charged posts are manually moderated and kept off the main page regardless of votes, with limited exceptions entirely up to the judgement of the editors. For example, content about the wars in Ukraine and Israel is not allowed on the mainpage except on rare occasions. dang has talked a lot about the reasoning behind this. The same applies to comments on HN. Comments are not moderated based purely on legal or certain general "good manners" grounds, they are moderated to keep a certain kind of discourse level. For example, shallow jokes or meme comments are not generally allowed on HN. Comments that start discussing controversial topics, even if civil, are also discouraged when they are not on-topic. Overall, HN is very much curated in the direction of a newspaper "letter to the editor" section, then more algorithmic and hands-off like the Facebook wall or TikTok feed. So there is no doubt whatsoever, I believe, that HN would be considered responsible for user content (and is, in fact, already pretty good at policing that in my experience, at least on the front page).
- zahlman 2y ago
  > The HN moderation team makes a lot of editorial choices, which is what gives HN its specific character. For example, highly politically charged posts are manually moderated and kept off the main page regardless of votes, with limited exceptions entirely up to the judgement of the editors. For example, content about the wars in Ukraine and Israel is not allowed on the mainpage except on rare occasions. dang has talked a lot about the reasoning behind this. This is meaningfully different in kind from only excluding posts that reflect certain perspectives on such a conflict. Maintaining topicality is not imposing a bias.
  - mr_toad 2y ago
    > This is meaningfully different in kind from only excluding posts that reflect certain perspectives on such a conflict. Maintaining topicality is not imposing a bias. Maintaining topicality is literally a bias. Excluding posts that reflect certain perspectives is censorship.