Comment by root_axis
5 months ago
That seems like a stretch. Discussions on wokeness are among the most common on the internet, it's also a well-known flame-war topic and explicitly political in nature. I think most people could have predicted the outcome of that thread based on the title alone. I suppose anything written by pg is automatically germane to HN, but that creates an awkward situation if other tech adjacent politically relevant discussion is subject to normal moderation policies.
Anyway, I know moderation is difficult, but I want to gently suggest that this feels like a double standard.
I think that's fair and of course I know that many people would make the individual moderation calls differently than we do, and be just as 'right' as we are. At the specific-data-point level, we're talking about judgment calls and guesswork, and there is inevitably some arbitrariness there. Consistency at that level is not possible.
On the other hand, a thoughtful pg essay and a sensational 3-second video clip of the most trollicious person on the internet are pretty different on (let's call it) the genre spectrum, and that's an important consideration for HN moderation too.
As inconsistent and arbitrary as individual moderation calls may feel or be, though, the principles of HN moderation have been surprisingly consistent over the years, and that's the more important level. We don't always apply them correctly or consistently, but I think the principles themselves are good ones for this site and are easily defensible. Most of what I do in moderation comments like this is try to explain those principles, though usually the commenters are concerned about one particular story, at least in the moment.
“People's interpretation of this 3-second video clip are determined by their prior feelings about this person.”
I and many others see something very blatant in the video, and you dismissing that is lazy and frankly, it makes you look biased.
Ive generally been impressed with HN moderation, but this is a very glaring exception.