Comment by dredmorbius
3 months ago
HN mods act on behaviour rather than position.
If someone's violating HN's guidelines (<https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>) or FAQ (<https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html>), flag the post or comment. Both links are found at the bottom of most HN pages. If there's an egregious violation, email mods at hn@ycombinator.com.
Most moderation (that is, votes and flags) are by members of the site, mods step in very rarely, usually guided by flags or emails as noted above. Member actions may well be driven by factors differing from those of mods, part of the moderators' job is to correct for those biases.
This reads like a sleek way to weasel oneself out of responsibility.
So what you're effectively implying is that the court of public (in Israel instances very clearly biased) opinion rules the site?
So guidelines for thee (Israel supporters) but not for me (Israel haters and Antisemites).
A famous poem from Martin Niemöller, who actually lived through facism comes to mind:
It can be frustrating, and I'd engaged for years on HN with the assumption that The Mods were Biased Against My Point of View. This itself is a common trope: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...> and <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.
I've changed that opinion, both by observing their behaviour (you can follow both your own, and any users' threads, on HN, including mods, which I review fairly frequently), and overall site characteristics (see: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...> and <https://toot.cat/deck/tags/HackerNewsAnalytics> and related).
I do have some remaining concerns that HN's policies can amount to tone-policing, and that issues which are themselves long-standing or recurring, regardless of other merits, tend to trip across the guidelines to a greater extent, which imposes a natural bias against them.
That said, if you do want to discuss a volatile, persistent, or repetitive issue, you'll find far greater success if you do so with HN's principles and guidelines in mind. It might possibly also make you a more efficient advocate and debater.