5 ms·

Passing the Torch on Asahi Linux

50 points by pabs3 2y ago

adastra22 2y ago
What’s with the warning on the top?
- Inocez 2y ago
  > 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.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- travisgriggs 2y ago
  My question exactly. It's bold and long enough to sound serious, but dances around vagaries. I have never targeted an Asahi Linux Developer. I've never seen anything that looked like that either. I can't even vet the claim, because no examples are given. I wouldn't know what to demand, or who to demand it of.
- oneplane 2y ago
  I think the contents of the warning explain the warning on the top adequately. There are some links in there as well, and they in turn lead to examples and citations. Considering the amount of visitors on HN, it's possible you've never seen or met anyone matching the described behaviour (in the linked pages). But the people on the receiving end might not want to warn for the thousands of people it doesn't apply to, but rather the ones where it does. Say it's only 10% of 1000 visitors matching the HN referrer, that's still 100 people against a handful of volunteers. If only 10 of those think it's funny to SWAT them, or send them things they didn't order, all day, every day, that's enough to warrant such a warning.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    The link (there's only one, to the same wiki article) has nothing to do with this website AFAICT.
    - oneplane 2y ago
      The article doesn't, but it provides the context on why the warning does, which is why it is there. That should answer your question: "What’s with the warning on the top?" Perhaps you expected a list of all sorts of interactions between this website and that website, but I doubt the project volunteers kept a ledger to share that with you and that in itself would incite reverse brigading which solves nothing.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        The project has apparently been harassed by some other group I’ve never heard of until today. I still fail to see how that has anything at all to do with HN. The wording of the warning definitely implies they’ve been hurt by HN.
        oneplane 2y ago
        That's because they have been hurt by HN. Not intentionally by HN itself, but they are also not the only target. As for how you haven't heard of them before, that is a bit surprising. They have been mentioned here plenty of times. HN being user-driven means they are an amplification and legitimisation vector for anyone who figures out how to abuse it. It's not an easy problem to solve, and I don't think any organisation (commercial, or otherwise) has really found a way to deal with this. As a human side-effect, most people will either have to have experienced it themselves, or have this as part of their job to understand the issue at all, and will either deny it or assume it's exaggerated. Even those that are on the instigating side will not have a concept of the impact until it inevitably happens to them (as is common in that ecosystem).
  - alt187 2y ago
    If someone wants to SWAT the Asahi Linux team, there is nothing the HackerNews moderation team can do to stop him.
- Drofus 2y ago
  [flagged]
- groby_b 2y ago
  Because a right wing forum is actively drive hate against Asahi folks (specifically Marcan), and it's using orphaned/unmoderated threads (because the anchor post is flagged) on HN to post that hate and get search ranking for it. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35237006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35237006 HN should stop making those threads available, not because right wing, or left wing, or whatever political argument you'd like to make, but because it's a way to get search juice for lots of things for free that is also detrimental, ultimately, to HN. You can post any garbage you like outside the view of the community, and still get it associated with the community here.
  - gedy 2y ago
    Maybe I'm missing some context, but how is some comment calling him weird related to right wing forums and needs the entire thread removed?
    - alt187 2y ago
      Because that same line of questioning (Marcan being Lina) has been entertained by said right-wing forum, ergo this should be purged to avoid giving them "juice".
      - groby_b 2y ago
        That's not at all what I'm saying. This specific case involves a specific group of people. I'd be equally annoyed if people on the other side of the spectrum used what amounts to a bug in HN to influence search ranking for a smear campaign. HN makes flagged posts and subthreads invisible to its average users (you need to link to the subthread), but keeps them fully searchable. And does not moderate them. As a result, it's an easy way to deposit unreviewed content on a high-reputation website, leeching of that reputation. It's got nothing to do with politics, and everything with the fact that when you allow a community to be publicly associated with content without letting the community see or moderate the content, you're damaging the community's reputation. HN should fix the bug. That's all. Everybody involved in this particular drama is entirely entitled to say whatever the heck they want, just not under the cover of being pretend-part of this community.
- tjpnz 2y ago
  Why on earth are they trying to link HN to Kiwi Farms?
chmorgan_ 2y ago
Re: the text up top, HN is already pretty much a mono-culture. If you dissent your comments are voted down. I'm sure its possible to have more moderation and to more actively tamp down alternative views but imo it's already excessive and reducing the scope of ideas here.
- oneplane 2y ago
  Do you have any examples where that is the case, rather than obvious rule breaking? I have seen some "voted down because people don't like it" but not "hidden because people don't like it". Voting does not equal moderation activity, it's just end-user voting which doesn't really represent the website's rules. As for why the text up top would still apply: the moderation methods don't prevent brigading or SEO poisoning, so even if HN was perfectly moderately moderated to moderate modernity, it wouldn't help since all scrapers (including search engines and LLM companies) will still connect this content together.
  - wmf 2y ago
    I've seen plenty of [dead] political comments and then some people complain that HN has a very biased definition of what is and is not political. Ultimately I don't think there's anything to do about this; there will always be people who don't like the rules.
veidr 2y ago
Related additional back-story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972062
SamuelAdams 2y ago
I know Rust might be a better technology for some drivers and use cases, but if they are constantly fighting an upstream battle with merging it, why not bite the bullet and write it in C? At that point the hard work of reverse engineering and coming up with a spec and a reliable piece of software that implements that spec are done. Don’t let that work go to waste.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Because there is a point to use Rust. We should use safe languages for drivers.
- Zandikar 2y ago
  > why not bite the bullet and write it in C Are they doing things the way they're doing it just to get it done, or are they doing it because they feel it's the right way to do things and they want to get it done right? If the former, then fair question. If the latter, then you answered your own question at the start of that sentence. > Don’t let that work go to waste. Which is what would happen if they gave up and wrote it in C if they're goal is not just to get it done, but to get it done right. Doesn't mean there aren't better/alternative ways to do things. Doesn't mean it's not worth asking if a lang other than rust may be better for certain/all parts of this (And yes, that includes C). But it also doesn't mean their hard work is going to waste just because the work is hard.
treve 2y ago
Why did this get flagged?
- tjpnz 2y ago
  Most likely due to the inflammatory warning text on the page.
  - oneplane 2y ago
    That is one possibility. It could also be exactly why this warning is on the page to begin with.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      It is entirely reasonable that a site which displays different content to what was shown at time of submission, purposefully because of HN, gets flagged.
      - oneplane 2y ago
        It doesn't. It has shown this banner for years, for anyone with a HackerNews referrer. As for the flagging, the guidelines say otherwise. A change in leadership and governance of a prominent open source project is noteworthy to the point that discussion on HackerNews is a perfect fit. Right here, of all places, people should be able to either understand the banner, or ignore it and get to the point of the article.
        adastra22 2y ago
        What I mean is that OP presumably submitted a link to this blog post because s/he intended to share the blog post. Without their knowledge, it became about the warning at the top of the page which wasn't there when they submitted. What OP submitted was not what we saw.
        2y ago

50 points by pabs3 2y ago

adastra22 2y ago

What’s with the warning on the top?

Inocez 2y ago
> 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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
travisgriggs 2y ago
My question exactly. It's bold and long enough to sound serious, but dances around vagaries. I have never targeted an Asahi Linux Developer. I've never seen anything that looked like that either. I can't even vet the claim, because no examples are given. I wouldn't know what to demand, or who to demand it of.
oneplane 2y ago
I think the contents of the warning explain the warning on the top adequately. There are some links in there as well, and they in turn lead to examples and citations. Considering the amount of visitors on HN, it's possible you've never seen or met anyone matching the described behaviour (in the linked pages). But the people on the receiving end might not want to warn for the thousands of people it doesn't apply to, but rather the ones where it does. Say it's only 10% of 1000 visitors matching the HN referrer, that's still 100 people against a handful of volunteers. If only 10 of those think it's funny to SWAT them, or send them things they didn't order, all day, every day, that's enough to warrant such a warning.
- adastra22 2y ago
  The link (there's only one, to the same wiki article) has nothing to do with this website AFAICT.
  - oneplane 2y ago
    The article doesn't, but it provides the context on why the warning does, which is why it is there. That should answer your question: "What’s with the warning on the top?" Perhaps you expected a list of all sorts of interactions between this website and that website, but I doubt the project volunteers kept a ledger to share that with you and that in itself would incite reverse brigading which solves nothing.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      The project has apparently been harassed by some other group I’ve never heard of until today. I still fail to see how that has anything at all to do with HN. The wording of the warning definitely implies they’ve been hurt by HN.
      - oneplane 2y ago
        That's because they have been hurt by HN. Not intentionally by HN itself, but they are also not the only target. As for how you haven't heard of them before, that is a bit surprising. They have been mentioned here plenty of times. HN being user-driven means they are an amplification and legitimisation vector for anyone who figures out how to abuse it. It's not an easy problem to solve, and I don't think any organisation (commercial, or otherwise) has really found a way to deal with this. As a human side-effect, most people will either have to have experienced it themselves, or have this as part of their job to understand the issue at all, and will either deny it or assume it's exaggerated. Even those that are on the instigating side will not have a concept of the impact until it inevitably happens to them (as is common in that ecosystem).
- alt187 2y ago
  If someone wants to SWAT the Asahi Linux team, there is nothing the HackerNews moderation team can do to stop him.
Drofus 2y ago
[flagged]
groby_b 2y ago
Because a right wing forum is actively drive hate against Asahi folks (specifically Marcan), and it's using orphaned/unmoderated threads (because the anchor post is flagged) on HN to post that hate and get search ranking for it. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35237006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35237006 HN should stop making those threads available, not because right wing, or left wing, or whatever political argument you'd like to make, but because it's a way to get search juice for lots of things for free that is also detrimental, ultimately, to HN. You can post any garbage you like outside the view of the community, and still get it associated with the community here.
- gedy 2y ago
  Maybe I'm missing some context, but how is some comment calling him weird related to right wing forums and needs the entire thread removed?
  - alt187 2y ago
    Because that same line of questioning (Marcan being Lina) has been entertained by said right-wing forum, ergo this should be purged to avoid giving them "juice".
    - groby_b 2y ago
      That's not at all what I'm saying. This specific case involves a specific group of people. I'd be equally annoyed if people on the other side of the spectrum used what amounts to a bug in HN to influence search ranking for a smear campaign. HN makes flagged posts and subthreads invisible to its average users (you need to link to the subthread), but keeps them fully searchable. And does not moderate them. As a result, it's an easy way to deposit unreviewed content on a high-reputation website, leeching of that reputation. It's got nothing to do with politics, and everything with the fact that when you allow a community to be publicly associated with content without letting the community see or moderate the content, you're damaging the community's reputation. HN should fix the bug. That's all. Everybody involved in this particular drama is entirely entitled to say whatever the heck they want, just not under the cover of being pretend-part of this community.
tjpnz 2y ago
Why on earth are they trying to link HN to Kiwi Farms?

chmorgan_ 2y ago

Re: the text up top, HN is already pretty much a mono-culture. If you dissent your comments are voted down. I'm sure its possible to have more moderation and to more actively tamp down alternative views but imo it's already excessive and reducing the scope of ideas here.

oneplane 2y ago
Do you have any examples where that is the case, rather than obvious rule breaking? I have seen some "voted down because people don't like it" but not "hidden because people don't like it". Voting does not equal moderation activity, it's just end-user voting which doesn't really represent the website's rules. As for why the text up top would still apply: the moderation methods don't prevent brigading or SEO poisoning, so even if HN was perfectly moderately moderated to moderate modernity, it wouldn't help since all scrapers (including search engines and LLM companies) will still connect this content together.
- wmf 2y ago
  I've seen plenty of [dead] political comments and then some people complain that HN has a very biased definition of what is and is not political. Ultimately I don't think there's anything to do about this; there will always be people who don't like the rules.

veidr 2y ago

Related additional back-story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972062

SamuelAdams 2y ago

I know Rust might be a better technology for some drivers and use cases, but if they are constantly fighting an upstream battle with merging it, why not bite the bullet and write it in C? At that point the hard work of reverse engineering and coming up with a spec and a reliable piece of software that implements that spec are done. Don’t let that work go to waste.

adastra22 2y ago
Because there is a point to use Rust. We should use safe languages for drivers.
Zandikar 2y ago
> why not bite the bullet and write it in C Are they doing things the way they're doing it just to get it done, or are they doing it because they feel it's the right way to do things and they want to get it done right? If the former, then fair question. If the latter, then you answered your own question at the start of that sentence. > Don’t let that work go to waste. Which is what would happen if they gave up and wrote it in C if they're goal is not just to get it done, but to get it done right. Doesn't mean there aren't better/alternative ways to do things. Doesn't mean it's not worth asking if a lang other than rust may be better for certain/all parts of this (And yes, that includes C). But it also doesn't mean their hard work is going to waste just because the work is hard.

treve 2y ago

Why did this get flagged?

tjpnz 2y ago
Most likely due to the inflammatory warning text on the page.
- oneplane 2y ago
  That is one possibility. It could also be exactly why this warning is on the page to begin with.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    It is entirely reasonable that a site which displays different content to what was shown at time of submission, purposefully because of HN, gets flagged.
    - oneplane 2y ago
      It doesn't. It has shown this banner for years, for anyone with a HackerNews referrer. As for the flagging, the guidelines say otherwise. A change in leadership and governance of a prominent open source project is noteworthy to the point that discussion on HackerNews is a perfect fit. Right here, of all places, people should be able to either understand the banner, or ignore it and get to the point of the article.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        What I mean is that OP presumably submitted a link to this blog post because s/he intended to share the blog post. Without their knowledge, it became about the warning at the top of the page which wasn't there when they submitted. What OP submitted was not what we saw.
        2y ago