Comment by dang
5 months ago
If that were true then yes, I could certainly understand why you think it's the wrong moderation call. But based on everything I know (or think I know) after 10+ years of doing this job, I don't believe it is true. It is too optimistic an assessment of the prospects of such a thread.
One point that might be worth adding (or maybe not, but here it is): when you say "moderation is crucial" and "letting the discussion happen (with supervision)", I feel like you're overestimating the capacity of moderation. It is a scarce resource in several ways, some obvious some not. Part of this is about trying to invest it wisely.
For example, I put huge effort into moderating the thread about pg's "origins of wokeness" essay (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682305) and ended up, at the end of a long day, feeling like I had hardly made a dent. (The current case would certainly be worse.) So when you argue for letting a particularly flame-prone thread burn and posit that it can be turned into a thoughtful conversation by sufficiently effective moderation, my sense is "I don't think that's realistic".
Anyhow, that's a secondary consideration, but it is consistent with the primary considerations.
(Btw I had deleted the first paragraph of my comment because I felt it was cuttable, but since you quoted it, I've put it back.)
And yet, the PG thread went away after it had its time on the front page, and isn't as big a deal anymore. Conversations were had, perspectives widened, words - calculated or callous - were shared, and the spirit of discourse was there. I think it was a great thread to learn more about what "woke" means to different people, and how we can angle our takes for it.
I'm glad you can admit that your attrition in moderating another post to your self-satisfaction was what encouraged you to make the decision to not even bother attempting with this one, not sarcasm. Self-awareness in our consideration of things is critical, and something I find us all (including me) needing more work on.
Moderation is scarce, yes, but a lot of executive decisions on the visibility of threads and comments are delegated to active users. As it should be - mind you, but it's not like it's fought alone here. I think a lot of us are willing to help, if it means topics worth talking about - especially when a lot of people think so - can stay around.
I appreciate the thoughts! I still think you're underestimating the damage that flamewars, especially the shallow intense ones, do to the community, but I suppose we've each made our points and I shouldn't harp on it. I want to correct one thing though. This isn't true:
> your attrition in moderating another post to your self-satisfaction was what encouraged you to make the decision to not even bother attempting with this one
It was, as I said, a secondary consideration. The primary ones are the ones I've spent much more time explaining, because they're primary. If they had pointed the other way then I would have gone against that preference in myself. I do agree with you about self-awareness, though; it is a precious thing and probably the most elusive one.
p.s. for selfish reasons I'd be curious to hear your take on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306, in which I attempted at unfortunate length to talk about this issue from a different angle. Don't read it unless you're actually interested though. It wouldn't be surprising if no one were; sometimes I just write these things to get them out of my system.
Sure!
In that thread's comment, your “sequence” perspective makes sense; it’s clearly more complex than it looks from the outside, and I don’t envy the ontological challenge of deciding which submissions are repetitive or closely related. Still, from a user standpoint, it can feel inconsistent: sometimes S1 and S2 look almost identical, and the fact that S1 “won” first might be just because the earliest, most active users or moderators happened to see it and push it forward. After that, the community tends to gravitate toward S1 by default, so S2 never really gets a fair shake, even if it’s potentially more interesting or revealing. That's just c'est la vie.
But this thread feels like a good example of that mismatch. If S1 got topped while S2 was flagged or buried, and users are complaining in a relatively united way, maybe that’s a sign the initial choice favored the wrong post - or standing on the "offending" post (if no S1 is, in fact, present). Sometimes it’s worth re-checking whether the “winner-loser” framing actually got it right. A bit more leeway for topics that initially look flame like a flame war farm could reveal more thoughtful angles than expected, especially if the community is giving feedback that S2 might actually be the more worthwhile discussion (as we saw here - I think we're also seeing it in the Ross Ulbricht pardon thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787555).
Anyway, I appreciate the deeper look at how you’re handling these issues. It helps me see why certain threads get the bird! I think, especially for you and because of the stated mission of HN, that you believe - even more than me - that it's always a shame when we miss the better conversation.
2 replies →