4 ms·

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?

> 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?