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Comment by jLaForest

2 days ago

It's a matter of taking his finger off the scale... Stop taking down threads with productive discussion just because they conflict with your worldview (and financial interests)

8 comments

jLaForest

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dang  2 days ago

What you call "taking finger off scale" would turn HN into a politics / current affairs site. I know that some of you want that, and a few even wonder how we can possibly be so evil as not to do it, but it is simply not the kind of site that HN is. That is the case regardless of what terminology you use - fingers on scales, curation, moderation, - which are different ways of describing the same thing.

I'm not sure why you need to invoke cynical motives for us running HN this way, since the reasons we give for this (which are quite real) explain things better. (for example, if we only cared about suppressing this stuff, why would HN be having frontpage threads about it at all? that doesn't make much sense.) But that's just me.

I think it would help you guys to understand that most of the HN community, even most who agree with you politically, do not want us to throw in the towel and let HN become like the rest of the internet. Only a small portion of users want this, though they do post intense (and sometimes even aggressive) comments about it. Given that HN has always stuck to its mandate and that the community wants us to keep doing so, I don't see this as a close call.

  • LexiMax  2 days ago

    Most of the social spaces that I frequent don't have the amount of political topics posted as HN.

    Would you like to know the difference between those spaces and here? It's that in those spaces, regardless of if the members are left right or center, the community is on the same page in terms of authoritarians, and authoritarian apologia will get you tossed.

    Therefore, there isn't the same sort of desire - or need - to point out the obvious and show the uncomfortable realities to the crowd.

    Refusing to take a stand on this sort of thing and leaving it for the community to sort out will only make things worse. It's functionally no different than the kind of combative environment you get on major social media networks; the only difference is the amount of tone policing caused by the user-facing moderation tools.

  • jLaForest  1 day ago

    Currently there is not a single remotely political post on the front page, as the moderators intended. But yes I should believe you and not my lying eyes

    Not only could you not allow the article posted, but even my comment on your actions was flagged. Stop censuring criticism because it makes you uncomfortable