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I don’t think I have ever disagreed with you dang, except in this case. The comment seemed thoughtful to me.

• dang 1y ago
  I appreciate the reply. My reaction, like most moderation comments, was shallow and limited in scope to what I know about forum dynamics. If you come out swinging with Nazi references, you're turning the knobs to 11 from the start. That's not compatible with the kind of discussion HN is going for. It's particularly troublesome when the thread is new, because threads are so sensitive to initial conditions. Also it's not as if that was the only such reference in the comment. Reading it the next morning, though, I think I misread what mindslight meant by "getting your family out of the concentration camp". Now that I'm reading it differently, I can see how my reply came across as too heavy-handed. Sorry all!
  • wat10000 1y ago
    “Concentration camp” is not necessarily a Nazi reference. The British invented them and the current US administration is reinventing them.
    • e40 1y ago
      Agreed. We had them in the US in the 40's for Japanese Americans.
  • e40 1y ago
    Hey, we appreciate you, dang. More than you probably will ever know. That this community is still what it is... it blows me away, and it is in large part due to your vigilance. Thank you.
  • lovich 1y ago
    Based on your lack of action on right wing extremist comments, I do not believe in the sincerity of your recalcitrance.
    • dang 1y ago
      I'm afraid that's sample bias. We've done exactly the same kind of moderation countless times on all wings of commenters for many years. You're right that not every comment which should be moderated actually gets moderated, but this is not because we're secretly on one side or the other. It's because we don't see most of what gets posted here. There's far too much of it to read, and we can't moderate what we don't see. If you see a post like that going unmoderated, the most likely explanation is that we just didn't see it (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=likeliest%20explanation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). To passionate users, it always feels like the mods are against them and secretly in cahoots with the other side, but this is an illusion (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22always%20feels%22%20mods%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). If it helps at all, the other side has exactly the same complaint, just with the political bit flipped. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26368875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26368875 for a plethora of quotes; they're years old now, but the phenomenon is perennial. Here are a few more recent cases: HN is mainly left leaning https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43559670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43559670 (April 2025) HN has turned into a far-left hive-mind https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43214821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43214821 (March 2025) this website is effectively a leftist filter bubble and you do nothing to address it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43146049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43146049 (Feb 2025) a hard liberal-progressive tilt https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43136198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43136198 (Feb 2025) a prog-left echo chamber https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43133747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43133747 (Feb 2025) an echo-chamber of left-wing lunatics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42576474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42576474 (Jan 2025)
      • lovich 1y ago
        I have interacted with you before and want to believe you but then I see comments in the same post like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43823412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43823412 > We got complaints about your use of the word "rabid" and I think they have a point. That crosses into name-calling in the sense that the HN guidelines ask you not to do. > If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. This is in response to someone who is violating the rules on extremist/flame bait/trolling with a right wing bent. It appears that you were pointed out this comment based on the inclusion of the word “rabid”. Now instead of coming in as a mod enforcing impartial rules, you’ve added words that give the tone that you are only admonishing this person because they got snitched on. If I believed you were impartial then even if you were pointed out this instance of rule breaking by an impartial observer, I would still expect you to treat it in a neutral manner. I understand after reading your links that I am probably falling to some sort of bias when I called you out on this particular, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone these days
  • computerthings 1y ago
    [dead]