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You're not seeing everything he does. For example, he removes capabilities from people's accounts and he can't remember why he did it: https://news.ycombinator.
by zfg 2y ago
You're not seeing everything he does. For example, he removes capabilities from people's accounts and he can't remember why he did it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42917749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42917749
He says he likes things to be "informal" by which he really means "opaque".
- dang 2y agoBy informal I do not mean opaque. What I mean is that anyone is welcome to ask questions about HN and we're happy to answer them. What we don't do is try to answer all the questions in advance. That's for several reasons, the first of which is that it's impossible.
- zfg 2y agoBut you're not willing to be upfront by including that information on the user's account. That's opaque.
- dang 2y agoNo, that's formal. Formal systems that purport to answer all questions in advance are a bureaucratic bane, and as long as I'm in charge of HN, we won't go there. I'm confident that the community feels the same way. If there's any information that someone wants to find out about HN or HN moderation, all they need to do is ask us.
- zfg 2y agoDude, you're leaving people guessing. That's no good. That is not nice "informality".
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rpmisms 2y agoI don't like tone policing in general, but be nice to dang. He has earned that courtesy, at least.
- cess11 2y agoI don't think it's a good idea to complain publicly about the moderation regime here. To me it seems dang and whoever else has thought things through and made reasonable decisions based on, among other considerations, the amount of labour they have at their disposal. Changing that would likely require a very strong incentive, and chatter does not amount to one.
- zfg 2y agoWhat, I shouldn't publicly comment on the regime? Why? Will dang send his goons after me?
- dang 2y agoEveryone is always guessing about everything. I try not to combat too many universals.
- zfg 2y agoNo, you're just evading responsibility which, unfortunately, is typical of the tech sector these days.
- pvg 2y agoMaybe you can talk a little bit about how your ideal HN would work, or look like or be moderated like? What sort of stories and comments would it have? How would it be different from the current one? It's hard to tell what you're actually arguing for given that most of your output seems to be directed at some windmill of your own construction.
- zfg 2y agoAs I've said, if the capabilities of a user's account are deliberately reduced then report that to the user on their account page. That's being upfront as opposed to being secretive and squirrelly and dodging responsibility.
- pvg 2y agoOk but the limitations of this have also been explained many times and it's not like the way it works here is unique to HN, that's how almost all forums work. lobste.rs is an attempt to do things somewhat differently and it doesn't feel like much of an improvement.
- zfg 2y agoThere are no limitations to simply being upfront and Hacker News can aspire to be better. It doesn't matter how other forums work.
- dredmorbius 2y agoYou (both zfg and any HN member reading this) can email the mods if you've got questions about how the site's treating you. I don't believe I've ever had sanctions put on my account here (though dang did admonish me, once, among numerous other interactions). But I've had my IP address caught up in bans (I often read HN without logging in), and a few other things. That is: if you want to know what's happening to your account, you can fall back on the slightly-higher-friction option of asking what's happening. No, it's not there automatically in your account profile, but then, that solution would permit for an attacker to automatically detect (and presumably counter) such information. The soft / opaque / translucent failure mode of HN actually works reasonably well in that context and environment. NB: I'm in general agreement with many of your concerns about HN, and in particular how it fits and how it is behaving in a rapidly-changing political environment in which HN and YC have a considerable role. But not everything you're proposing bears out, and even some of what does (e.g., opaque limitations on accounts) doesn't work well in a larger context. I do have strong concerns about how HN's comments guidance hits unevenly in political discussion especially. I'm not entirely sure how to best improve on that, though I've been thinking through options and doing some reading (Jurgen Habermass's work in particular). I've spent about 15 years studying HN (and often being wrong about it). If you'd (again, zfg or others) care to discuss via email my contact info is on my account page.
- setnone 2y agoHN is a very particular public digital garden and @dang is a gardener doing his gardening stuff, just wondering what is your purpose here if you don't mind sharing?