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Author here. One of the things that brought me back to HN has been that it has felt less dramatic than in times past. Whether that’s flagging, or moderation, or

Author here. One of the things that brought me back to HN has been that it has felt less dramatic than in times past. Whether that’s flagging, or moderation, or the community changing its tastes, I don’t know, but I value it. I stand by my post as worthy of being written, but that doesn’t mean it belongs on HN today. It could be that it does not address an issue that the HN community finds valuable, especially in a startup context. It could be that it is a good post, but hey, it’s the seventeenth similar post today. That happens, I recall some talk years ago about bundling posts so that there could be one discussion, but Hn doesn’t, and there isn’t room for seventeen posts on the same subject in one day. It could be that it’s a little heavy on my personal feelings and light on objective information. That’s fine, a blog ought to contain subjective experiences, but a site like HN ought to weight towards information on the whole. It could be that it reads like an SJW having a hissy-fit and rage-quitting, and we don’t need that ‘round here. Either way, I just want everyone to know that I appreciate that some HNers value its existence, but I am not dismayed that it isn’t going to be on HN. Regardless of what is happening to this specific post, on the whole I value the arc (heh heh) of HN’s growth.

muglug 11y ago
And hey, thanks for writing it. I don't agree with all of it, but appreciate your position, the eloquence with which you voiced it, and the dignity you've shown here.
meeper16 11y ago
I like the way it was written but I was especially intrigued by what we, as a community of startups, allow ourselves to monetize. I remember reading that porn and sex trade is what drove 14% of craiglist traffic at one point and I'm not sure how Craig Newmark handled that. Child porn is another driver of image sites. This all a matter of ethics on so many different levels, racism included. If our companies and engineering teams are sanctuaries for this kind of stuff, it really calls into question the how far we go at the sacrifice of society to make a dollar. If we don't address these things as a community of startups and engineers then we could get bit in unforeseen ways. I'm at least glad we've had a bit of discussion here on it.
stickfigure 11y ago
I'm late to this and wouldn't have flagged your post even if I wasn't, but since I went through the trouble to find and read it, I'll give you feedback: "Reads like a SJW having a hissy-fit and rage-quitting" is reasonably accurate. Maybe a little more bland: You are shocked to discover yucky things in on the internet? Yawn. Personally I think taking money from racists and asshats is a high calling. I never understand why politicians in the US return donations from nasty sources when they come to light. That's effectively giving money to bigots. Keep their money and do something good with it.
- meeper16 11y ago
  Would you draw the line at selling drugs to some junkies?
  - stickfigure 11y ago
    I genuinely don't understand the question. Are you suggesting there is some relationship between bigots and substance abusers?
    - task_queue 11y ago
      Profiting from either group is morally bankrupt. You know substance abusers have a problem and are giving you money to further it. You know bigots have an agenda and are giving you money to further it.
      - stickfigure 11y ago
        This is a weird and tortured comparison.
        task_queue 11y ago
        It seems blindingly obvious what the grandparent's intent was in this context. What is weird and tortured in this comparison?
nkurz 11y ago
What did you mean by your statement "The practical reality is that Reddit seems to have overtaken Stormfront as the world’s largest White Supremacy community." I took it as a probable statement of fact: more White Supremacists use Reddit than use any other single forum on the web. That is, while the percentage of total Reddit users that are White Supremecists is likely low (although much higher you desire), the total number is larger than any other single site because even a small percentage of a gigantic userbase means there are an awful lot of racist Reddit users. Others seem to be taking it as an indictment of the entire Reddit community, and assume you are claiming that everyone who uses Reddit is racist. What did you intend by the comparison? Anecdotally, when I went through recently subscribing to specific subreddits, I don't recall hitting any overtly racist groups in the dozen or so pages of offerings I clicked through. I was surprised though by the amount of porn that was offered to me. It seems likely that by some metrics Reddit must be one of the largest pornography sites in the world.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  I’d love to discuss this further, but I have a feeling that it’s playing “dirty pool” to use a discussion about why the post was moderated as a side-channel for discussing the post itself :-)
  - nkurz 11y ago
    Likely a good intuition, although I think it would depend on whether "moderated" means that after deliberation the moderators decided that HN was not the right forum to discuss your post, or whether a small minority of individual users decided that the discussion should be removed from the site. I was hoping to see an official clarification, but haven't yet seen one, even though several hours have passed. Maybe this is the one weekend a year that Dan's briefly allowed out of the dark and damp HN dungeon where he is kept permanently chained in front the glowing green VT100 that is his only contact with the outside world? At least that's how I've always pictured him.

muglug 11y ago

And hey, thanks for writing it. I don't agree with all of it, but appreciate your position, the eloquence with which you voiced it, and the dignity you've shown here.

meeper16 11y ago

I like the way it was written but I was especially intrigued by what we, as a community of startups, allow ourselves to monetize. I remember reading that porn and sex trade is what drove 14% of craiglist traffic at one point and I'm not sure how Craig Newmark handled that. Child porn is another driver of image sites. This all a matter of ethics on so many different levels, racism included. If our companies and engineering teams are sanctuaries for this kind of stuff, it really calls into question the how far we go at the sacrifice of society to make a dollar. If we don't address these things as a community of startups and engineers then we could get bit in unforeseen ways. I'm at least glad we've had a bit of discussion here on it.

stickfigure 11y ago

I'm late to this and wouldn't have flagged your post even if I wasn't, but since I went through the trouble to find and read it, I'll give you feedback: "Reads like a SJW having a hissy-fit and rage-quitting" is reasonably accurate. Maybe a little more bland: You are shocked to discover yucky things in on the internet? Yawn. Personally I think taking money from racists and asshats is a high calling. I never understand why politicians in the US return donations from nasty sources when they come to light. That's effectively giving money to bigots. Keep their money and do something good with it.

meeper16 11y ago
Would you draw the line at selling drugs to some junkies?
- stickfigure 11y ago
  I genuinely don't understand the question. Are you suggesting there is some relationship between bigots and substance abusers?
  - task_queue 11y ago
    Profiting from either group is morally bankrupt. You know substance abusers have a problem and are giving you money to further it. You know bigots have an agenda and are giving you money to further it.
    - stickfigure 11y ago
      This is a weird and tortured comparison.
      - task_queue 11y ago
        It seems blindingly obvious what the grandparent's intent was in this context. What is weird and tortured in this comparison?

nkurz 11y ago

What did you mean by your statement "The practical reality is that Reddit seems to have overtaken Stormfront as the world’s largest White Supremacy community." I took it as a probable statement of fact: more White Supremacists use Reddit than use any other single forum on the web. That is, while the percentage of total Reddit users that are White Supremecists is likely low (although much higher you desire), the total number is larger than any other single site because even a small percentage of a gigantic userbase means there are an awful lot of racist Reddit users. Others seem to be taking it as an indictment of the entire Reddit community, and assume you are claiming that everyone who uses Reddit is racist. What did you intend by the comparison? Anecdotally, when I went through recently subscribing to specific subreddits, I don't recall hitting any overtly racist groups in the dozen or so pages of offerings I clicked through. I was surprised though by the amount of porn that was offered to me. It seems likely that by some metrics Reddit must be one of the largest pornography sites in the world.

braythwayt 11y ago
I’d love to discuss this further, but I have a feeling that it’s playing “dirty pool” to use a discussion about why the post was moderated as a side-channel for discussing the post itself :-)
- nkurz 11y ago
  Likely a good intuition, although I think it would depend on whether "moderated" means that after deliberation the moderators decided that HN was not the right forum to discuss your post, or whether a small minority of individual users decided that the discussion should be removed from the site. I was hoping to see an official clarification, but haven't yet seen one, even though several hours have passed. Maybe this is the one weekend a year that Dan's briefly allowed out of the dark and damp HN dungeon where he is kept permanently chained in front the glowing green VT100 that is his only contact with the outside world? At least that's how I've always pictured him.