He is, but maybe there’s some survivorship bias there. We can’t really ask the shadowbanned people what they think of the moderation because they’re shadowbanned.
> We can’t really ask the shadowbanned people what they think of the moderation because they’re shadowbanned.
Just flip the showdead switch in settings and you can enjoy the infinite wisdom and feistiness of banned users. Can’t be easier. For instance, in this thread there’s exactly one banned sibling, making a gross, sexual personal attack.
Which always puzzles me. I have showdead on, just to get the whole picture. And because it is sometimes hilarious, to be honest. But how an you not realize you have been banned, when everyone on here is talking about it?
Far fewer people are shadowbanned these days. And I think if people are commenting reasonably without realising they are shadowbanned, dang will try to get in touch to let them know they are banned.
Most of the things they have to say are reasonable most of the time. Like mundane comments about programming languages and whatnot.
I think they would be pretty pissed off to know that they've been banned for months or more because they said something that rubbed the mods the wrong way at one point.
> I think they would be pretty pissed off to know that they've been banned for months or more because they said something that rubbed the mods the wrong way at one point.
We know, but some of us enjoy reminding Ian Murdock's friends-in-need of what they did.
Preferably before it's their turn to ask for help...
I don't want to blame @dang for this, but I see plenty of people talking about the toxic content of "The orange website", and several people have bothered to explicitly block links from here.
Could that just be a size thing? I remember Twitter being a lot more sane place before it was overrun by politics a few years ago. Or maybe the algorithm was better at keeping that stuff away?
I think large scale makes it impossible to be good. Small scale doesn't guarantee good.
Reddit, slashdot, and a whole slew of others went through an HN-like phase of high-quality discussions and content before turning into cesspools.
I think what makes HN unique is benevolent sponsorship. There isn't pressure to grow. It's recruiting for Y-Combinator, which eliminates most of the normal pressures.
My favorite article on the life cycle (growth & collapse) of online communities is “Attacked from Within”* from the old kuro5hin site. I’ve always been curious to how it’s suggested solutions to the moderation problem would turn out.
i also think it's a content thing. the content of HN doesn't lend itself to lunatics most of the time. i say "most" because it certainly happens (see the early covid threads and the hatred spewed for anyone questioning or even just wondering aloud about the lockdowns)
I don't think the incendiary rhetoric of most of Twitter (let alone Trump) would pass muster with HN moderation.
Edit: People downvoting me even though I'm right. Take most of the comments you see on Twitter in subject matter and/or delivery, and they would be either downvoted or moderated off this platform. No-one in good faith (who has had reasonable exposure to Twitter) could argue this is not the case. Just to be clear, I believe this to be a good thing.
I haven't heard of the false equivalence before, but it doesn't sound like this. There is that popular fallacy though, but I'm not aware if it has a name, where people think that the truth is always in the middle (the golden middle).
And you could say that this is it, but given the strong polarization and extremism around topics that involve politics it might be a good measure in this case. (Of course, depending on what exactly 'everybody' means.) By definition extremists of either side will see independent actors as hostile. But, of course, this is just a measure, not a proof.
The umpire is not going to advocate for either stand in this metaphor. The umpire will restrict or disseminate information for both sides. If the umpire does so in a way that irritates both parties, then they are doing so equally. Thus why PC said this.
so in the end you have to anchor this to some expertise and grounded-in-reality judgement.
For example, the majority in the aforementioned poll believed that COVID-19 was created in a lab in China. And to be honest, an average person really has no way of truly knowing this. They're not virologists or spies. They can only judge based on a gut feeling whether China is/isn't evil, and that is likely based on other things they've heard, which may include rumors, propaganda and Bond movies.
I dunno, I was friends in college with someone who moderated a subreddit whose head mod was univesally hated to the point where a rival subreddit formed and eventually outpaced the original.
I have to say from everything I heard about the guy, and my own rare interactions with him, the hatred of him was 100% justified. Some people are just very shitty and lack any sympathizers.
There is a problem when the umpire is an empire. If HN decided to ban Trump, no one but local hacker population would notice. In case of services with billions of registered users, quantity has its own quality.
Facebook, Twitter et al. built enormous platforms for speech and thus got caught up in the middle of all cultural and political conflicts on this planet. Not just American election(s), but elections in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Germany, UK, Brazil, plus religious conflicts such as Islamists vs. people who draw Muhammad.
They cannot possibly stay neutral in all those wars at once and when they start taking sides, they will be hated first and then, later, either dismembered or regulated to be a de-facto arm of the government.
> There is no popular position with moderation, everyone hates the umpire.
Afaik, one big issue is that this account was operating under different rules then everybody else. As in, twitter was more permissive with Trump then with other people.
On the flip side, if everyone hates you equally you're probably on the right track.