The discussion on HN is excellent and I wanted to highlight this comment from Dang:
The discussion on HN is excellent and I wanted to highlight this comment from Dang:
if you can make the moderation about behavior (I prefer the word effects [1]) rather than about the person, then you have a chance to persuade them to behave differently. Some people, maybe even most, adjust their behavior in response to feedback. Over time, this can compound into community-level effects (culture etc.) - that's the hope, anyhow. I think I've seen such changes on HN but the community/culture changes so slowly that one can easily deceive oneself. There's no question it happens at the individual user level, at least some of the time.
Conversely, if you make the moderation about the person (being a bad actor etc.) then the only way they can agree with you is by regarding themselves badly. That's a weak position for persuasion! It almost compels them to resist you.
I try to use depersonalized language for this reason. Instead of saying "you" did this (yeah that's right, YOU), I'll tell someone that their account is doing something, or that their comment is a certain way. This creates distance between their account or their comment and them, which leaves them freer to be receptive and to change.
Someone will point out or link to cases where I did the exact opposite of this, and they'll be right. It's hard to do consistently. Our emotional programming points the other way, which is what makes this stuff hard and so dependent on self-awareness, which is the scarcest thing and not easily added to [2].
I might be misunderstanding what you mean by malice, but in that case it's probably not the best word for what you're describing. I'd be interested in a different description if you want to write one. I definitely don't think that malice is something you can just-see and make accurate judgments about, let alone detect with data.
For me, malice relates to intent. Intent isn't observable. When person X makes a claim about Y's intent, they're almost always filling in invisible gaps using their imagination. You can't moderate on that basis. We have to go by effects, not intent (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
It took me a long time to (partially) learn that if I tell a user "you were being $foo" where $foo relates to their intent, then (1) they can simply deny it and no one can prove otherwise, making the moderation position a weak one; and (2) mostly they will deny it sincerely because they never had such an intent, not consciously at least. Now you've given them a reason to feel entirely in the right, and if you moderate them anyway, they will feel treated unjustly. This is a way to generate bad blood, make enemies, and lose the high ground.
The reverse strategy is much better: describe the effects of someone's posts and explain why they are bad. When inevitably they respond with "but my intent was ABC", the answer is "I believe you [what else can you say about something only that person could know?], but nonetheless the effects were XYZ and we have to moderate based on effects. Intent doesn't communicate itself—the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate it." (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
Often when people get moderated in this way, they respond by writing the comment they originally had in their head, as a sort of defense of what they actually meant. It's astonishing what a gap there often is between the two. Then you can respond that if they had posted that in the first place, it would have been fine, and that while they know what they have in their head when posting, the rest of us have no access to that—it needs to be spelled out explicitly.
Being able to tell someone "if you had posted that in the first place, it would have been fine" is an extremely strong moderation position, because it takes off the table the idea "you're only moderating me because you dislike my opinions", which is otherwise practically ubiquitous.
But HN is a fucking hellsite. dang doesn't realise it, but here he's saying "it's fine to be a nazi on HN, just don't use the bad words". That's why people openly post fascist talking points.
But HN is a fucking hellsite.
dang doesn't realise it, but here he's saying "it's fine to be a nazi on HN, just don't use the bad words". That's why people openly post fascist talking points.
I see a lot of casual transphobia on HN, along with a lot of libertarian-dream "of course the market and the smart engineers will always sort everything out, and requiring any sort of regulation...
I see a lot of casual transphobia on HN, along with a lot of libertarian-dream "of course the market and the smart engineers will always sort everything out, and requiring any sort of regulation would be a gross overreach"
If you think libertarians make HN a hellscape, I'd like to know what I can do personally to not make people miserable, aside from not raising economic opinions in unwarranted conversations and...
If you think libertarians make HN a hellscape, I'd like to know what I can do personally to not make people miserable, aside from not raising economic opinions in unwarranted conversations and derailing threads.
You are right, I think the user I replied to is merely listing their reasons for agreeing that HN is a hellsite. I'm not sure if they are saying libertarian commentary contributes to making a...
You are right, I think the user I replied to is merely listing their reasons for agreeing that HN is a hellsite. I'm not sure if they are saying libertarian commentary contributes to making a hellsite, but if so I guess the rest of my response is relevant. I'll edit it.
I think "libertarian" in that case is filling in for a certain personality type that tends to lean Libertarian. One might also call the Silicon Valley tech bros.
I think "libertarian" in that case is filling in for a certain personality type that tends to lean Libertarian. One might also call the Silicon Valley tech bros.
HN isn’t a hellsite. It’s just one of the few websites left where you can engage in actual debate rather than hear the same opinion reposted endlessly.
HN isn’t a hellsite. It’s just one of the few websites left where you can engage in actual debate rather than hear the same opinion reposted endlessly.
I've felt that in some interactions, HN's rules pertaining treating all users as if acting in good faith effectively shut down the debate when people broke the thread of rationality with fallacies...
I've felt that in some interactions, HN's rules pertaining treating all users as if acting in good faith effectively shut down the debate when people broke the thread of rationality with fallacies and other arguments impossible to address without confronting the user directly. A common one is the sentiment (in my words) "this issue does not affect me, therefore it does not exist/it is not important."
HN frustrates me more often than this website.
Obviously there are still a lot of people there with interesting things to say and a lot of interesting submissions.
Yeah I agree. I think in general assumptions of good faith are necessary, but once you cross a certain scale threshold you just can't. There are too many people who don't exercise good faith and...
I've felt that in some interactions, HN's rules pertaining treating all users as if acting in good faith effectively shut down the debate when people broke the thread of rationality with fallacies and other arguments impossible to address without confronting the user directly.
Yeah I agree. I think in general assumptions of good faith are necessary, but once you cross a certain scale threshold you just can't. There are too many people who don't exercise good faith and the assumption drags the whole thing down by allowing sophistry to rule the day.
There's no debate there. It has a very narrow viewpoint, which is unsurprising considering it's mostly young white cis-het American right wing men. If it wasn't a hellsite you'd have more women...
There's no debate there. It has a very narrow viewpoint, which is unsurprising considering it's mostly young white cis-het American right wing men.
If it wasn't a hellsite you'd have more women posting there. Even by the standards of US tech women are under-represented in the user base.
Dan, don’t take offence to this but your contributions to HN as I’ve come across them are often exactly of the kind that the author talks about. HN is hit and miss to be sure, but it’s an overall...
Dan, don’t take offence to this but your contributions to HN as I’ve come across them are often exactly of the kind that the author talks about. HN is hit and miss to be sure, but it’s an overall net good contribution to society. Calling it a hellsite is just … idk, way off.
And… Maybe you don’t see women posting there because nobody there explicitly advertises themselves as male or female. Maybe you come across a lot of guys because it’s a techie site and thus there is a male bias. And maybe the internet as a whole has a bias against equal representation of sexes due to problems inherent to online communication, none of which are HN’s fault. (Which is why websites tend to be male dominated or female dominated, but rarely in between)
Also, shitty opinions can be held by both genders. There are female fascists just as there are male ones.
Many people on HN do explicitly advertise themselves as male. Women, trans people, people of colour, don't reveal who they are, and that's the problem isn't it? It's not a hellsite for white cis straight dudes, but for anyone else it's a nightmare unless you're disguised.
The few times they've tried the experiment to get more visible women posting ("Ask a female engineer" being a notable example) had some good an interesting comments and a bunch of sexism.
but it’s an overall net good contribution to society.
There's almost nothing of value that's come from HN. I mean, even pg was telling YCombinator startups to ignore HN.
It's fine that you enjoy it, but you should stop ignoring the people who tell you that they're excluded from it because of the blatant racism or sexism or anti-trans comments.
You’re not alone thinking HN is an unwelcoming place but its value is undeniable. Thousands of companies, projects, products have been made because of HN. Thousands of connections formed. And it...
You’re not alone thinking HN is an unwelcoming place but its value is undeniable. Thousands of companies, projects, products have been made because of HN. Thousands of connections formed. And it is an immense treasure trove of curated learning material if you know how to use it. Yes I’m sure your next retort will be some kind of whine about how useless products have been made, so let’s skip over that and maybe filter by the useful stuff.
So, I’m sorry it brings you nothing of value. Your experience does not reflect the real world. Just as a single data point which counters your entire argument: HN has brought me a massive knowledge boost which has impacted my career in ways which have allowed me to have a positive impact on the world and those around me. For one of many examples, I now coach programming and business to two wonderful Ukrainian women, thanks to skills and free time I gained directly thanks to HN.
I ignore exactly one person in this whole charade, I will let you decide which demographic they’re a part of. Hint; they’re the same person who called me and a friend of mine “straight white cis dudes”, being wrong on two counts in one sentence. Still haven’t forgotten that.
I did apologise, more than once, for that. So, this is a really common sentiment across a range of industries. People look at a thing, and see some output, and say "how marvellous". And what they...
Still haven’t forgotten that.
I did apologise, more than once, for that.
Thousands of companies, projects, products have been made because of HN. Thousands of connections formed. And it is an immense treasure trove of curated learning material if you know how to use it.
So, this is a really common sentiment across a range of industries. People look at a thing, and see some output, and say "how marvellous". And what they don't do is look at who's being excluded, who's being harmed, and how life could have been better if we didn't have that thing in the way blocking actual progress.
For an example that isn't HN look at the so called "golden age" of science fiction. There's a load of people who still claim that this was a golden age, and they point to all the writers and books that came out during that time and they mention that many of these writers and books are still popular. But they don't look at the books that were not written. People talk about how influential eg John W Campbell was. But his overt racism (extreme even for the time) often goes unexplored. Compare these three articles:
That was one of my first direct encounters, as a professional writer, with the slippery and always commercialized form of liberal American prejudice: Campbell had nothing against my being black, you understand. (There reputedly exists a letter from him to horror writer Dean Koontz, from only a year or two later, in which Campbell argues in all seriousness that a technologically advanced black civilization is a social and a biological impossibility. . . .). No, perish the thought! Surely there was not a prejudiced bone in his body! It’s just that I had, by pure happenstance, chosen to write about someone whose mother was from Senegal (and whose father was from Norway), and it was the poor benighted readers, out there in America’s heartland, who, in 1967, would be too upset. . . .
To drag it back to HN: when people are excluded from the community (and we know they are because they say they are) we don't know what we've lost in the way of companies that don't get formed, partnerships that don't get made, connections that remain broken.
I think the point you make about opportunities vs exclusion is interesting enough to discuss outside of this terrible subthread. I’m away right now but feel free to post it standalone.
I think the point you make about opportunities vs exclusion is interesting enough to discuss outside of this terrible subthread. I’m away right now but feel free to post it standalone.
You don't have to censor someone for them to not want to use a website. If you have a few negative interactions and it's not something essential then it's easy just to move on to something else,...
You don't have to censor someone for them to not want to use a website. If you have a few negative interactions and it's not something essential then it's easy just to move on to something else, and before you know it you've got a pretty bad vibe. I don't really know much about HN so I can't say whether that's the case, but I've seen it happen in other places before.
Woman in tech here! I left HN after a few negative interactions. I used to read it pretty regularly, but the sexism got to be too much for me, and I consider myself to have a pretty thick skin for...
Woman in tech here! I left HN after a few negative interactions. I used to read it pretty regularly, but the sexism got to be too much for me, and I consider myself to have a pretty thick skin for that.
It's not about the topic itself, but I like the tangent on trees in the middle. Self-serving (in that it's his company, the trees help us all), but brief enough it doesn't detract. That's hard to...
It's not about the topic itself, but I like the tangent on trees in the middle. Self-serving (in that it's his company, the trees help us all), but brief enough it doesn't detract. That's hard to pull off.
I'm glad you posted this. I read yishan's comments yesterday from the HN thread, but dropped off halfway through the trees talk. I didn't realize he picked up the thread on content moderation...
I'm glad you posted this. I read yishan's comments yesterday from the HN thread, but dropped off halfway through the trees talk. I didn't realize he picked up the thread on content moderation again!
That stood out to me, too. It makes me afraid for a future where everything will have advertisements embedded in ways where they can't be separated from the non-advertising content.
That stood out to me, too. It makes me afraid for a future where everything will have advertisements embedded in ways where they can't be separated from the non-advertising content.
Yang's thoughts are interesting. I wonder if the suggestion of giving users more control over the content they see is a good way to offload this? Instead of blocking things at the source, you...
Yang's thoughts are interesting. I wonder if the suggestion of giving users more control over the content they see is a good way to offload this? Instead of blocking things at the source, you filter them into a spam box, but users define what is spam for themselves, rather than the network deciding unilaterally. I've seen this kind of thing here with the user-configurable "Ignored Topics" function, and I've seen it on my preferred Reddit client, Apollo, with user-configurable filters. Platforms introducing APIs so services like Block Party could be built for all the platforms sounds like a good idea to me. Hell, make marketplaces so users who are good at creating filters can sell them (a la ad blockers). (Obviously, this only affects user-satisfaction—it can't address issues of illegal content, like legitimate DMCA takedowns, CSAM, etc.)
That strategy doesn't work for the casual user. It's way, way too much effort. Therefore it's not a platform-level moderation policy that's workable. Many platforms still struggle with people not...
That strategy doesn't work for the casual user. It's way, way too much effort. Therefore it's not a platform-level moderation policy that's workable.
Many platforms still struggle with people not being bothered to make accounts, or rarely logging into their accounts when they browse.
I'm not sure I agree. Email clients have built-in spam filtering and allow users to train/configure them. That sounds like an orthogonal problem to moderation. Either those platforms should...
It's way, way too much effort.
I'm not sure I agree. Email clients have built-in spam filtering and allow users to train/configure them.
Many platforms still struggle with people not being bothered to make accounts, or rarely logging into their accounts when they browse.
That sounds like an orthogonal problem to moderation. Either those platforms should require users to make accounts (a la Instagram), or they should let users know that their experience will be inferior when not logged in.
It didn't work for Usenet. It didn't work for email. It feels like a form of "don't feed the trolls" which 1) while being good advice leaves people, especially minorities, wide open to horrific...
I wonder if the suggestion of giving users more control over the content they see is a good way to offload this?
It didn't work for Usenet. It didn't work for email.
It feels like a form of "don't feed the trolls" which 1) while being good advice leaves people, especially minorities, wide open to horrific abuse and 2) is not possible for many people to do because we love taking the bait.
The discussion on HN is excellent and I wanted to highlight this comment from Dang:
I'm going to expand that first footnote, which goes to another of dang's posts:
But HN is a fucking hellsite.
dang doesn't realise it, but here he's saying "it's fine to be a nazi on HN, just don't use the bad words". That's why people openly post fascist talking points.
I see a lot of casual transphobia on HN, along with a lot of libertarian-dream "of course the market and the smart engineers will always sort everything out, and requiring any sort of regulation would be a gross overreach"
If you think libertarians make HN a hellscape, I'd like to know what I can do personally to not make people miserable, aside from not raising economic opinions in unwarranted conversations and derailing threads.
I think you're mixing up two totally different comments and commenters. The person you're replying to made no mention of nazism or fascism on HN.
You are right, I think the user I replied to is merely listing their reasons for agreeing that HN is a hellsite. I'm not sure if they are saying libertarian commentary contributes to making a hellsite, but if so I guess the rest of my response is relevant. I'll edit it.
I think "libertarian" in that case is filling in for a certain personality type that tends to lean Libertarian. One might also call the Silicon Valley tech bros.
HN isn’t a hellsite. It’s just one of the few websites left where you can engage in actual debate rather than hear the same opinion reposted endlessly.
I've felt that in some interactions, HN's rules pertaining treating all users as if acting in good faith effectively shut down the debate when people broke the thread of rationality with fallacies and other arguments impossible to address without confronting the user directly. A common one is the sentiment (in my words) "this issue does not affect me, therefore it does not exist/it is not important."
HN frustrates me more often than this website.
Obviously there are still a lot of people there with interesting things to say and a lot of interesting submissions.
Yeah I agree. I think in general assumptions of good faith are necessary, but once you cross a certain scale threshold you just can't. There are too many people who don't exercise good faith and the assumption drags the whole thing down by allowing sophistry to rule the day.
There's no debate there. It has a very narrow viewpoint, which is unsurprising considering it's mostly young white cis-het American right wing men.
If it wasn't a hellsite you'd have more women posting there. Even by the standards of US tech women are under-represented in the user base.
Dan, don’t take offence to this but your contributions to HN as I’ve come across them are often exactly of the kind that the author talks about. HN is hit and miss to be sure, but it’s an overall net good contribution to society. Calling it a hellsite is just … idk, way off.
And… Maybe you don’t see women posting there because nobody there explicitly advertises themselves as male or female. Maybe you come across a lot of guys because it’s a techie site and thus there is a male bias. And maybe the internet as a whole has a bias against equal representation of sexes due to problems inherent to online communication, none of which are HN’s fault. (Which is why websites tend to be male dominated or female dominated, but rarely in between)
Also, shitty opinions can be held by both genders. There are female fascists just as there are male ones.
I've mostly stopped using the site and have asked to be banned from it.
There are many women who say that HN was a terrible experience for them. https://melissamcewen.medium.com/a-guide-to-hacker-news-for-people-who-arent-men-5737bc3e68a
Many people on HN do explicitly advertise themselves as male. Women, trans people, people of colour, don't reveal who they are, and that's the problem isn't it? It's not a hellsite for white cis straight dudes, but for anyone else it's a nightmare unless you're disguised.
The few times they've tried the experiment to get more visible women posting ("Ask a female engineer" being a notable example) had some good an interesting comments and a bunch of sexism.
There's almost nothing of value that's come from HN. I mean, even pg was telling YCombinator startups to ignore HN.
It's fine that you enjoy it, but you should stop ignoring the people who tell you that they're excluded from it because of the blatant racism or sexism or anti-trans comments.
You’re not alone thinking HN is an unwelcoming place but its value is undeniable. Thousands of companies, projects, products have been made because of HN. Thousands of connections formed. And it is an immense treasure trove of curated learning material if you know how to use it. Yes I’m sure your next retort will be some kind of whine about how useless products have been made, so let’s skip over that and maybe filter by the useful stuff.
So, I’m sorry it brings you nothing of value. Your experience does not reflect the real world. Just as a single data point which counters your entire argument: HN has brought me a massive knowledge boost which has impacted my career in ways which have allowed me to have a positive impact on the world and those around me. For one of many examples, I now coach programming and business to two wonderful Ukrainian women, thanks to skills and free time I gained directly thanks to HN.
I ignore exactly one person in this whole charade, I will let you decide which demographic they’re a part of. Hint; they’re the same person who called me and a friend of mine “straight white cis dudes”, being wrong on two counts in one sentence. Still haven’t forgotten that.
I did apologise, more than once, for that.
So, this is a really common sentiment across a range of industries. People look at a thing, and see some output, and say "how marvellous". And what they don't do is look at who's being excluded, who's being harmed, and how life could have been better if we didn't have that thing in the way blocking actual progress.
For an example that isn't HN look at the so called "golden age" of science fiction. There's a load of people who still claim that this was a golden age, and they point to all the writers and books that came out during that time and they mention that many of these writers and books are still popular. But they don't look at the books that were not written. People talk about how influential eg John W Campbell was. But his overt racism (extreme even for the time) often goes unexplored. Compare these three articles:
https://jacklimpert.com/2021/06/john-w-campbell/
https://andrewhickey.info/2017/08/09/the-prometheans-wheels-within-wheels/
https://www.nyrsf.com/racism-and-science-fiction-.html
To drag it back to HN: when people are excluded from the community (and we know they are because they say they are) we don't know what we've lost in the way of companies that don't get formed, partnerships that don't get made, connections that remain broken.
I think the point you make about opportunities vs exclusion is interesting enough to discuss outside of this terrible subthread. I’m away right now but feel free to post it standalone.
Are women censored on HN?
You don't have to censor someone for them to not want to use a website. If you have a few negative interactions and it's not something essential then it's easy just to move on to something else, and before you know it you've got a pretty bad vibe. I don't really know much about HN so I can't say whether that's the case, but I've seen it happen in other places before.
I asked because I have not seen bad vibe towards women on HN, I think Dang has done a fine job moderating HN.
Woman in tech here! I left HN after a few negative interactions. I used to read it pretty regularly, but the sexism got to be too much for me, and I consider myself to have a pretty thick skin for that.
Gonna do something I don't usually do, but paging @Deimos, given your background, I'd love to pick your brain as well on this whole topic.
It's not about the topic itself, but I like the tangent on trees in the middle. Self-serving (in that it's his company, the trees help us all), but brief enough it doesn't detract. That's hard to pull off.
I'm glad you posted this. I read yishan's comments yesterday from the HN thread, but dropped off halfway through the trees talk. I didn't realize he picked up the thread on content moderation again!
e: Typo
Bold of Yishan to literally embed advertising into a tweet thread where spam is one of the topics.
That stood out to me, too. It makes me afraid for a future where everything will have advertisements embedded in ways where they can't be separated from the non-advertising content.
Yang's thoughts are interesting. I wonder if the suggestion of giving users more control over the content they see is a good way to offload this? Instead of blocking things at the source, you filter them into a spam box, but users define what is spam for themselves, rather than the network deciding unilaterally. I've seen this kind of thing here with the user-configurable "Ignored Topics" function, and I've seen it on my preferred Reddit client, Apollo, with user-configurable filters. Platforms introducing APIs so services like Block Party could be built for all the platforms sounds like a good idea to me. Hell, make marketplaces so users who are good at creating filters can sell them (a la ad blockers). (Obviously, this only affects user-satisfaction—it can't address issues of illegal content, like legitimate DMCA takedowns, CSAM, etc.)
That strategy doesn't work for the casual user. It's way, way too much effort. Therefore it's not a platform-level moderation policy that's workable.
Many platforms still struggle with people not being bothered to make accounts, or rarely logging into their accounts when they browse.
I'm not sure I agree. Email clients have built-in spam filtering and allow users to train/configure them.
That sounds like an orthogonal problem to moderation. Either those platforms should require users to make accounts (a la Instagram), or they should let users know that their experience will be inferior when not logged in.
It didn't work for Usenet. It didn't work for email.
It feels like a form of "don't feed the trolls" which 1) while being good advice leaves people, especially minorities, wide open to horrific abuse and 2) is not possible for many people to do because we love taking the bait.
Twitter source: https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1586955288061452289
Discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33449791 (891 comments)