5 ms·

See also the response from the Asahi team: https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/

by sphars 2y ago

actionfromafar 2y ago
"Although you don't see those threads, search engines do. HN uniquely has a high page rank and low moderation, making it a prime target for bad actors to poison search results with abuse, bigotry, and nastiness. This isn't low-level trolling, but an organized attempt to destroy lives, including of developers in our communities."
- talldayo 2y ago
  Funny how this aged, now. Trying to shame people on Mastodon? Totally valid. Trying to chew someone out on a private forum? Now it's an organized attempt to destroy lives.
  - timezone25mg 2y ago
    I notice this strange double standard also. "Everyone else is a bully, but not me - I'm just trying to raise awareness."
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  Always funny to me to read something like that. HN has high moderation, one of the highest I've seen on modern fora, only a few steps below r/AskHistorians for example. I don't see this "abuse, bigotry, and nastiness" here and even if there are comments like that, they are quickly downvoted and dead.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    But apparently the dead threads are still read by search engines (and by extension LLMs) filling them with highly ranked bile.
    - satvikpendem 2y ago
      They require an account with showdead enabled so they are not being indexed by default.
      - actionfromafar 2y ago
        Huh, interesting, someome should tell Asahi this.
      - fzeroracer 2y ago
        That's not correct, the point is that while the comment might be flag-killed, the subsequent posts in that thread are not and are visible to search engines. For example: if you go to this post [1] from the prior thread while in private/incognito/whatever mode you can see the posts underneath a flagged comment even though you can't see the comment itself. And there are some comments there by other users that, despite being flagged, are still indexable and visible [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972571
        satvikpendem 2y ago
        That's true, but those comments would be flagged too if they're bad enough. Just because a flagged comment exists does not mean the entire subthread is bad.
        fzeroracer 2y ago
        Right, but that gets into the exact argument that the team is making. When a thread is flagged, that means fewer users are going to open that thread and flag subsequent content or flamebait. It creates a lower moderation environment where those kinds of comments can thrive, which is evident in the same link I posted where you can see what I'm referring to.
        arp242 2y ago
        As a general point I agree that it would be better that a flag disables replies to the entire subthread (although it shouldn't [dead] it), just because 99% of the time they're just not good discussions. However, the claim that this is somehow "destroying lives" is rather unserious. Whatever may or may not be going on on Kiwifarms has little to do with HN, and the occasional idiotic comment on HN is ... just the occasional idiotic comment on HN. There are also not really that many of them. Also, I'll add that whenever I've seen an unflagged hateful comment I've emailed hn@ycombinator.com, and the success rate in getting the comment killed and people told off (or banned) is thus far exactly 100%. This usually happens if someone leaves a comment a few days after the discussion dies down, so few see (and flag) it.
  - prododev 2y ago
    HN is pretty low moderation across the axis of personal attacks. If you politely say a ad hominem or racist or *-phobic thing here, it's unlikely you'll be moderated for it, for instance. I can dig up many such examples, but I suspect the response would be, "of course that's not moderated" because this community has a different set of values than some others. Moderation is always an editorial action, and as such we tend to view it as strong when it aligns with our own values and weak when it doesn't.
    - dang 2y ago
      That doesn't match my experience of what we do, so I'd like to see those "many such examples". IMO, if you're going to make charges like this, which would be serious if they were true, you should include links so readers can make up their own minds.
      - prododev 2y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42461200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42461200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42783776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42783776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42780835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42780835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42718838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42718838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42708579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42708579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42700319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42700319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43034231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43034231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43031405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43031405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42959625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42959625 My methodology: Search for any of the following terms: woman, biological, Black, Latino, gay, trans, woke, dei, or virtue signal Set to "Comments" and "30 days". You'll find plenty of people saying things that are pretty awful. Yes, they are not the majority of posts, this place isn't a cesspool, it's just a place that permits "just asking questions" or "it's up for debate" as a defense for behavior I could find many, MANY more examples.
  - fzeroracer 2y ago
    I don't think HN has high moderation at all. High moderation would imply stricter and quicker punishment for making rancid remarks. There were a number of remarks on the prior thread by people making conspiracy claims, harassment, insults etc. Some of them get flag-killed, some just down voted but ultimately the users on the site still remain. Of course I'm not one to be above such a thing in terms of insulting people occasionally but HN is really quite permissive in terms of what you can post and get away with. It takes consistent and repeated bad behavior to get a warning, and even more to get banned. And if you're an expert in being politely venomous you can get away with even more. That's why the outside perception of HN tends to be a lot worse than the inward one.
echelon 2y ago
At the top of the page: > Hi! It looks like you might have come from Hacker News. > Asahi Linux developers are frequent targets of abuse on Hacker News. Despite our pleas, the moderators have not taken effective action to improve the situation. > Overtly hateful content is often flagged on HN and not immediately visible. Unfortunately, when a comment is flagged and killed, its child subthread is not. That preserves the 'clean' image of the website, but the reduced moderation activity enables abuse to continue. Although you don't see those threads, search engines do. HN uniquely has a high page rank and low moderation, making it a prime target for bad actors to poison search results with abuse, bigotry, and nastiness. This isn't low-level trolling, but an organized attempt to destroy lives, including of developers in our communities. > Please demand change within your community. This is an unfair and gross assessment. I've lost some respect from Asahi for this. They're calling for extreme moderation of opinions they don't agree with, which is the opposite of open discourse. Asahi: deal with it. You're Streisand Effecting this. Your inability to handle drama is actually causing more drama. Just turn the other cheek and ignore it.
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  How does asking for flag-killing a post to also disable replies in the thread equate to extreme moderation of opinions they disagree with?
- krapp 2y ago
  If the opinions they don't agree with exist on Hacker News, and they do (check the dead comments in just about any thread where Asahi Linux comes up) then it isn't an unfair assessment at all. What is the "it" that you're insisting they "deal with," here? What is the "drama?" Also what value does bigotry, homophobia and transphobia have in open discourse that it must be preserved? None of that is on topic for Hacker News, why must it be on topic for the Asahi Linux community?
  - echelon 2y ago
    This wasn't even my point [1], but I'll go there. Turn the other cheek. Ignore it. It's 2025 we're learning lessons from USENET all over again and having to reign in the over-sensitive, disregulated behavior of some people. I'm gay, on the spectrum, and my wife is trans. What certain people in "my" community do from places of relative comfort makes life for those of us in more moderate / conservative-leaning places worse. The screeching from our community [2] has turned our little demographic into a major culture war topic, and it's all because of the bad attention and friction you manufacture. Conservatives let LGBT and trans issues slide for over two decades of my adult life. But by being loud and attempting to silence them -- by harassing them -- you've become the nail that sticks out and have now created a tidal wave of opinion against us. It's easy for some European or SF trans person to call for universal outlawing and censoring of speech, but you have to realize your message is being read all over the world. It's interpreted by an overwhelming number of people as attempting to memory hole conservatives and flush away their culture. Simultaneous to your harmful messages, folks are also being inundated with social media rage/engagement bait to make them think liberals are literally attempting to destroy and annihilate conservatives [3]. Your message adds weight to this perception, and all you accomplish here is making the majority of voters angry at us. It even turns moderates and would-be supporters sour. I hate that you represent me by association and think that this is acceptable behavior. As another anecdote, when I talk to my friends about Rust, the subject of "drama" frequently comes up. Why is that? Suddenly my work becomes harder for an entirely unrelated and unmerited reason. That's just me as an LGBT person - imagine how straight people feel. We shouldn't have to keep reading about this over and over. It's orthogonal, childish, dysfunctional behavior. Take one more look at that loud disgusting banner on the top of the Asahi page. That's neener-neenering in front of everyone. Even the moderates you hope to be your allies. Please, for god's sake, put yourself into different shoes. You're asking them to do it for you, but it's your turn. I think you'll see that your behavior is also harassment. Please calm down, slow down, and behave like adults. Not everything warrants a response or attention. Chances are, it'll just go away and get totally ignored. When you engage, you shift the conversation and bring yourselves down to their level. You create a firestorm of drama that everyone watches like a burning wreck. Stand above that. [1] I only wanted to talk about the very public, inflammatory resignation and the immature handling of this by certain parties. [2] eg, folks whose entire personality is to harass people on social media: https://www.tiktok.com/@lillytino_/video/7295890626539687210 https://www.tiktok.com/@lillytino_/video/7295890626539687210 [3] Just look at this image and how religious people take it: https://danolinger.com/2018/11/01/responding-to-persecution-part-2/ https://danolinger.com/2018/11/01/responding-to-persecution-...

See also the response from the Asahi team: https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/

by sphars 2y ago

See also the response from the Asahi team: https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/

actionfromafar 2y ago

"Although you don't see those threads, search engines do. HN uniquely has a high page rank and low moderation, making it a prime target for bad actors to poison search results with abuse, bigotry, and nastiness. This isn't low-level trolling, but an organized attempt to destroy lives, including of developers in our communities."

talldayo 2y ago
Funny how this aged, now. Trying to shame people on Mastodon? Totally valid. Trying to chew someone out on a private forum? Now it's an organized attempt to destroy lives.
- timezone25mg 2y ago
  I notice this strange double standard also. "Everyone else is a bully, but not me - I'm just trying to raise awareness."
satvikpendem 2y ago
Always funny to me to read something like that. HN has high moderation, one of the highest I've seen on modern fora, only a few steps below r/AskHistorians for example. I don't see this "abuse, bigotry, and nastiness" here and even if there are comments like that, they are quickly downvoted and dead.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  But apparently the dead threads are still read by search engines (and by extension LLMs) filling them with highly ranked bile.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    They require an account with showdead enabled so they are not being indexed by default.
    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      Huh, interesting, someome should tell Asahi this.
    - fzeroracer 2y ago
      That's not correct, the point is that while the comment might be flag-killed, the subsequent posts in that thread are not and are visible to search engines. For example: if you go to this post [1] from the prior thread while in private/incognito/whatever mode you can see the posts underneath a flagged comment even though you can't see the comment itself. And there are some comments there by other users that, despite being flagged, are still indexable and visible [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972571
      - satvikpendem 2y ago
        That's true, but those comments would be flagged too if they're bad enough. Just because a flagged comment exists does not mean the entire subthread is bad.
        fzeroracer 2y ago
        Right, but that gets into the exact argument that the team is making. When a thread is flagged, that means fewer users are going to open that thread and flag subsequent content or flamebait. It creates a lower moderation environment where those kinds of comments can thrive, which is evident in the same link I posted where you can see what I'm referring to.
        arp242 2y ago
        As a general point I agree that it would be better that a flag disables replies to the entire subthread (although it shouldn't [dead] it), just because 99% of the time they're just not good discussions. However, the claim that this is somehow "destroying lives" is rather unserious. Whatever may or may not be going on on Kiwifarms has little to do with HN, and the occasional idiotic comment on HN is ... just the occasional idiotic comment on HN. There are also not really that many of them. Also, I'll add that whenever I've seen an unflagged hateful comment I've emailed hn@ycombinator.com, and the success rate in getting the comment killed and people told off (or banned) is thus far exactly 100%. This usually happens if someone leaves a comment a few days after the discussion dies down, so few see (and flag) it.
- prododev 2y ago
  HN is pretty low moderation across the axis of personal attacks. If you politely say a ad hominem or racist or *-phobic thing here, it's unlikely you'll be moderated for it, for instance. I can dig up many such examples, but I suspect the response would be, "of course that's not moderated" because this community has a different set of values than some others. Moderation is always an editorial action, and as such we tend to view it as strong when it aligns with our own values and weak when it doesn't.
  - dang 2y ago
    That doesn't match my experience of what we do, so I'd like to see those "many such examples". IMO, if you're going to make charges like this, which would be serious if they were true, you should include links so readers can make up their own minds.
    - prododev 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42461200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42461200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42907076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42783776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42783776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42780835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42780835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42718838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42718838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42708579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42708579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42700319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42700319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43034231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43034231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43031405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43031405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42959625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42959625 My methodology: Search for any of the following terms: woman, biological, Black, Latino, gay, trans, woke, dei, or virtue signal Set to "Comments" and "30 days". You'll find plenty of people saying things that are pretty awful. Yes, they are not the majority of posts, this place isn't a cesspool, it's just a place that permits "just asking questions" or "it's up for debate" as a defense for behavior I could find many, MANY more examples.
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  I don't think HN has high moderation at all. High moderation would imply stricter and quicker punishment for making rancid remarks. There were a number of remarks on the prior thread by people making conspiracy claims, harassment, insults etc. Some of them get flag-killed, some just down voted but ultimately the users on the site still remain. Of course I'm not one to be above such a thing in terms of insulting people occasionally but HN is really quite permissive in terms of what you can post and get away with. It takes consistent and repeated bad behavior to get a warning, and even more to get banned. And if you're an expert in being politely venomous you can get away with even more. That's why the outside perception of HN tends to be a lot worse than the inward one.

echelon 2y ago

At the top of the page: > Hi! It looks like you might have come from Hacker News. > Asahi Linux developers are frequent targets of abuse on Hacker News. Despite our pleas, the moderators have not taken effective action to improve the situation. > Overtly hateful content is often flagged on HN and not immediately visible. Unfortunately, when a comment is flagged and killed, its child subthread is not. That preserves the 'clean' image of the website, but the reduced moderation activity enables abuse to continue. Although you don't see those threads, search engines do. HN uniquely has a high page rank and low moderation, making it a prime target for bad actors to poison search results with abuse, bigotry, and nastiness. This isn't low-level trolling, but an organized attempt to destroy lives, including of developers in our communities. > Please demand change within your community. This is an unfair and gross assessment. I've lost some respect from Asahi for this. They're calling for extreme moderation of opinions they don't agree with, which is the opposite of open discourse. Asahi: deal with it. You're Streisand Effecting this. Your inability to handle drama is actually causing more drama. Just turn the other cheek and ignore it.

fzeroracer 2y ago
How does asking for flag-killing a post to also disable replies in the thread equate to extreme moderation of opinions they disagree with?
krapp 2y ago
If the opinions they don't agree with exist on Hacker News, and they do (check the dead comments in just about any thread where Asahi Linux comes up) then it isn't an unfair assessment at all. What is the "it" that you're insisting they "deal with," here? What is the "drama?" Also what value does bigotry, homophobia and transphobia have in open discourse that it must be preserved? None of that is on topic for Hacker News, why must it be on topic for the Asahi Linux community?
- echelon 2y ago
  This wasn't even my point [1], but I'll go there. Turn the other cheek. Ignore it. It's 2025 we're learning lessons from USENET all over again and having to reign in the over-sensitive, disregulated behavior of some people. I'm gay, on the spectrum, and my wife is trans. What certain people in "my" community do from places of relative comfort makes life for those of us in more moderate / conservative-leaning places worse. The screeching from our community [2] has turned our little demographic into a major culture war topic, and it's all because of the bad attention and friction you manufacture. Conservatives let LGBT and trans issues slide for over two decades of my adult life. But by being loud and attempting to silence them -- by harassing them -- you've become the nail that sticks out and have now created a tidal wave of opinion against us. It's easy for some European or SF trans person to call for universal outlawing and censoring of speech, but you have to realize your message is being read all over the world. It's interpreted by an overwhelming number of people as attempting to memory hole conservatives and flush away their culture. Simultaneous to your harmful messages, folks are also being inundated with social media rage/engagement bait to make them think liberals are literally attempting to destroy and annihilate conservatives [3]. Your message adds weight to this perception, and all you accomplish here is making the majority of voters angry at us. It even turns moderates and would-be supporters sour. I hate that you represent me by association and think that this is acceptable behavior. As another anecdote, when I talk to my friends about Rust, the subject of "drama" frequently comes up. Why is that? Suddenly my work becomes harder for an entirely unrelated and unmerited reason. That's just me as an LGBT person - imagine how straight people feel. We shouldn't have to keep reading about this over and over. It's orthogonal, childish, dysfunctional behavior. Take one more look at that loud disgusting banner on the top of the Asahi page. That's neener-neenering in front of everyone. Even the moderates you hope to be your allies. Please, for god's sake, put yourself into different shoes. You're asking them to do it for you, but it's your turn. I think you'll see that your behavior is also harassment. Please calm down, slow down, and behave like adults. Not everything warrants a response or attention. Chances are, it'll just go away and get totally ignored. When you engage, you shift the conversation and bring yourselves down to their level. You create a firestorm of drama that everyone watches like a burning wreck. Stand above that. [1] I only wanted to talk about the very public, inflammatory resignation and the immature handling of this by certain parties. [2] eg, folks whose entire personality is to harass people on social media: https://www.tiktok.com/@lillytino_/video/7295890626539687210 https://www.tiktok.com/@lillytino_/video/7295890626539687210 [3] Just look at this image and how religious people take it: https://danolinger.com/2018/11/01/responding-to-persecution-part-2/ https://danolinger.com/2018/11/01/responding-to-persecution-...