Comment by dang
5 months ago
> We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for,
Alas, that is not true for all values of "we". Let's see how we do in the current thread. (Edit: so far it does seem to be a little better.)
> but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged
Yes, and at the same time we've turned off the flags on quite a few of them—enough that this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now. I realize that's not enough for those who want more, but this is always the case whenever there is a MOT (Major Ongoing Topic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011
* (because as far as I know, all the important questions have already been answered, which is not to say everyone is happy!)
It's thanks to this kind of guidance that HN survives as a focused technical hivemind.
At the same time, issues of this kind of revolutionary scope are important for users to process. We can learn a lot from each other.
Irrespective of politics, it's necessary to hedge systemic risk that's appearing due to destabilization of the US. That affects so many of us that it's hard to ignore.
Keeping some persistent outlet (front page post) for discussion of this major topic is important to give people a politically agnostic and technically proficient space to integrate what's happening.
Thank you for filtering the noise and fear with the posts.
> Keeping some persistent outlet (front page post) for discussion of this major topic is important to give people a politically agnostic and technically proficient space to integrate what's happening.
It doesn't really feel like a politically agnostic space. A large number of users (though probably a small proportion of total HN users) seem to care a lot and of those who care a lot it looks like at least 3/4rs have a "leftist" persuasion.
(Sadly, I'm not longer aware of any intelligent and politically agnostic space where politics can be discussed. All those I knew have gradually become dominated by one political direction or another)
I would also say, that to me dang and team is doing a good job in general. I disagree with any sentiment that this is being censored, and I applaud the openness for discussing this.
> But also by users who just care about protecting HN for its intended purpose, which is vulnerable to getting consumed by political flames.
I think there has been an element of backlash here. I believe there are people posting Musk articles repeatedly in response to the flagging, feeding the cycle.
Yes, that happens sometimes.
>this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now
I wonder if you are maybe too close to the problem to see it from a normal HN user's perspective. From my perspective, I don't get this impression because I don't see the full breath of conversations that happen on HN like you do. People clearly want to talk about this here and I have rarely seen these stories actually on the front page of HN because they are so quick to drop off the front page due to flagging, downvoting, the flame war detector, or whatever other behind the scenes mechanics exist that you are obviously more knowledgeable about than me. People continuing to have conversations on posts that no one sees unless they specifically search them out is the equivalent of shadowbanning those conversations. Yes, they are still happening, but the normal HN user isn't actually seeing them and that is why you are fielding so many complaints from normal users who want to see these posts.
I think you're right, but it's not clear to me what we could do differently about that. Ultimately it derives from the fundamentals of the site. Most people don't see most of what gets posted here. I don't either.
I think the situation has demonstrated a weakness. Elon Musk, unarguably the single most Hacker News person on the planet due to his control of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter and others, and now tied up in US politics with DOGE, has completely disappeared from the front page of hacker news, except for the articles you personally have deflagged. And you can't do that 24x7, such as the weekend Treasury Payments got shutdown and apparently nothing newsworthy was done by DOGE or Musk. I was watching articles mentioning either DOGE or Musk in the headline begin flagged in minutes. The same article might stay up for several hours if the headline had been edited to remove the offending words (but that might just be a side effect of getting less traction). And you get stuck with making the call which articles to unflag, based on limited information as they don't hang around long enough to meaningfully get upvotes or beyond the first 15 minutes of irrational blathering in the comments.
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On the whole, I appreciate and respect your approach to moderation. However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that many leaders in the YC sphere — possibly including Garry Tan — seem to be aligned with Thiel and Yarvin on the topic of government and democracy. (The “smart ones” should aggressively take over and restructure our republic in the image of a corporation.) If there is, in fact, an active and ongoing conspiracy against the government headed by SV technocrats, how can we trust moderation on this site to be unbiased? (This is my fear, not an accusation.)
I don't know that you can. Trust is a strong word, and I can't claim to be unbiased. What I can claim is that we (HN mods) work hard to be conscious of our biases and not be swayed by them when making moderation calls. Can that be done perfectly? No. One is still influenced, even if not swayed, and anyway unconscious bias is a thing. But can it be done better with practice? I'm sure it can, at least to a point, and we do at least have years of practice.
Let me see what else I can come up with for you...
Well, here are some things: (1) HN's moderation approach to this kind of stuff hasn't changed in years; (2) the principles of what we do are pretty clearly articulated (though we don't always apply those principles optimally); (3) we try to always answer the questions people have; (4) we're open to admitting and correcting mistakes when we find out about them; and (5) FWIW, I don't know of anyone working on HN (or at YC for that matter) who supports the immoderate agenda you're describing, though I also don't have (or want, or need) core dumps of anyone's politics.
Thank you for your openness!
[dupe]
Why did you let the article that was posted about a16z and Daniel Penny get flag killed so many times?
It’s so lame and tiresome —- powerful tech people look like idiots, it gets killed on here.
I haven't seen that one yet; I was mostly offline yesterday. This happens sometimes.
Btw, stories about "powerful tech people look like idiots" get discussed on HN all the time. The tenor of HN comments about that kind of thing leans strongly towards the cynical, enough that it's actually a problem for the long-term quality of the site. I may be misinterpreting you, but if you feel like HN needs more of that, I have to disagree.
Edit: $Firm hires $PolarizingPerson is probably not a good topic for HN but I'm happy to take a look at specific articles.
> Using the word 'censored' ultimately just means you'd like to see more of this topic on HN. I certainly respect that, but there are also a lot of other users who would like to see less of it.
Woo love changing the meaning of words to fit what I imagine other people are using it for!!
Sorry, I'm not getting you here—perhaps if you made your point without snark, it would be easier to understand and respond to.