7 ms·
Thank you to dang and sctb
Dan and Scott do an incredible amount of work behind the scenes to make Hacker News what it is. I have never met two more thoughtful community stewards. They usually get more hate than thanks, which they deal with cheerfully. This community means a lot to a lot of people.
So today I wanted to say thanks, on behalf of the HN community.
- mturmon 8y agoPatient, smart, consistent. Thanks.
- ptr 8y agoI’d like to express my gratitude as well.
- zitterbewegung 8y agoYea, thanks to everyone who keeps this site rolling !
- thatha7777 8y agoDan and Scott, thank you for thoughtful moderation, patches, and your cheerful goodwill.
- monochromatic 8y agodang has (nicely) called me out a couple of times for making comments that were rude or not productive. I’m glad that they’re trying to keep this place civil.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoHe called me out at least once, too. But the time he did, well, I pretty much deserved it...
- toomuchtodo 8y agoThank you Dan and Scott! Your work on HN is deeply appreciated! You keep us all civil and on topic tirelessly.
- miles 8y agoI don't always agree with their moderation decisions, but am ever grateful for their fine work in maintaining the best discussion board on the Internet. Deepest thanks to you guys!
- comesee 8y agodang called me a troll after I simply asked him exactly what it was about my comment that warranted it being removed. So, no thanks actually.
- wild_preference 8y agoLooking at your screenshot you post elsewhere (https://ibb.co/hoSMHK https://ibb.co/hoSMHK), I have to agree with them insofar as you need to know when to quit. Running a forum is hard work and everyone wants to devolve every mod decision into rules lawyering, like "well, then why wasn't this specific thing in the rules?" No, there can't be a rule for literally everything, so you're just going to have to be an adult and take it on the chin when the mods make a decision and double down on it. I completely empathize with dang's final post, that your "legalistic gambit" is a waste of everyone's time, and often the platform people like to spring off some sort of "omg the mod tyranny" campaign. That happened over 70 days ago. Maybe it's time to let it go and learn to live with the fact that your tiny comment was flagged. Looking at your post history, you've lived through much worse, respectfully.
- comesee 8y agoI disagree, our civilization is built on codified laws, otherwise dictators arbitrarily decide what is allowed and what isn't. Is that justice? You're defending injustice. Rules must be written down and clarified, if I'm wrong so is civilization.
- wild_preference 8y agoIt's a forum with two moderators, not a civilization with a multi-tiered court justice system to interpret the laws. You're going to have to live with that. If you disagree so much, maybe it's time to go somewhere else and spare the rest of us from your permanent, belabored grudge. Like, boo hoo. Seriously. Hopefully you find something else to spend your precious time on earth worrying about.
- 8y ago
- amasad 8y agoThey're awesome -- thank you!
- marmshallow 8y agoThis is by far my favorite pocket of the internet and much thanks goes to the team that keeps the culture alive and well!
- chris_st 8y agoHear hear! Thanks to dang and sctb, and to everyone who keeps this site up and running, AND to the incredibly thoughtful and interesting commenters!
- iamwil 8y agoThank you both.
- NicoJuicy 8y agoThank you Dan and Scott! I appreciate the understanding, i once added a "post to HN" button to my RSS feed service and i posted too much.. I received a ban and only afterwards it seemed i was posting too much, but explained the situation and was met with understanding. Now, i'm much more considerate. Thanks for the human moderation and keeping the quality on HN as good as possible.
- cyberferret 8y agodang has to be one of the most patient and civil mods I've ever come across on an internet forum of any kind. I try and mimic his style on assets that I have mod duties on.
- superasn 8y agoAlso thanks for being so super responsive and helpful to emails queries too. I've gotten replies from dang in matter of minutes! Amazing how well they do it.
- jvns 8y agoas someone whose writing ends up on here from time to time, I really appreciate the HN mods' work to keep discussion on topic & constructive. It's obviously a tough job and every time I've emailed them with a concern they've been very helpful.
- dboon 8y agoAnd as an aside, I absolutely love your writing.
- akulbe 8y agoDitto!! Your writing is AMAZING!
- telltruth 8y agoI am a huge fan of your writings but as a firm supporter of freedom of speech, I loath banning people for what they say. There are obviously exceptions like supporting violence or racism of any kind. Strong language and opinions are perfectly fine as long as it is written in PG rated language. However as evident in this thread (scroll to the bottom, read washed out greyed comments), a lot of the banning here seem to happen due to difference of opinion. I am insterested what sort of comments bothered you and how the mods helped you ban those people. Any sample comments would help understand this new fact that authors can engage directly with mods to suppress dialog they may feel unwanted.
- codetrotter 8y agoThank you dang and sctb. Your effort is instrumental in keeping HN the cool place that it is :)
- Insanity 8y agoTheir nicks don't ring a bell with me, and I've been here for ~2 years. Which probably means that what they're doing is a good thing though, not a lot of flame wars going on! (Or alternatively, I just stay away from articles that might cause need for more moderation). But thanks! Good mods are crucial for a place like this
- quickthrower2 8y agoThere is a decent amount of community moderation through downvotes and flags, plus some algos deciding to kill certain comments (they can be seen with the showdead optuon)
- slededit 8y agoYou probably don't have showdead enabled. Unlike other places bans come with an explanation - so I see them fairly often following flagged posts.
- Insanity 8y agoOh indeed, that is disabled for me, good point!
- classichasclass 8y agoGood idea, I should turn that on! Thanks for the suggestion.
- taneq 8y agoYou've probably seen them post and just not realised they were mods. They don't come in swinging their weight around all HURR DURR I'M A MOD, they tend to just politely remind people to be civil and constructive.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- amingilani 8y agoThanks guys. And — despite the fact that every time I say the phrase on HN I get downvoted to hell — I'm going to say it: not all heroes wear capes ;)
- sudosteph 8y agoWait, you're telling me these guys don't have capes yet? I'm sensing some great gift ideas for the YC secret-santa this year.
- sudosteph 8y agodang really is a great moderator. He's got a good eye for spotting problematic behavior, and a level head for dealing with it. He's set me straight in the past, and I'm glad he did. The way he remains both professional and empathetic, even when dealing with sensitive users and topics, really exudes the best of hacker news ethos. Here's to you, dang!
- chris_wot 8y agoCan't say I've experienced this, he treated me pretty badly in the past. Most times he is OK though. By all means downvote me, btw. This backslapping post on the front page only wants to hear about how amazing the mods are, so the bias is pretty evident.
- danso 8y agoI didn't downvote but I think others might have because you leveled an allegation so vague as to be irrefutable. I think dang has been a great mod and have only seen the interactions that involve me, or have been upvoted. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in seeing substantive criticism from those who've experienced differently.
- chris_wot 8y agoIt’s kind of hard to do. Almost certainly dang or another mod would rate limit or shadow ban me. It’s their site to do as they will, but it strikes me as interesting that they are held up as saints when they are anything but. Note that I’m not saying they are monsters either, but as someone on the receiving end of dang’s conduct I personally cannot agree with this post. It’s not like they are really accountable for their actions.
- bhengaij 8y agoThey're just regular mods. On a toxic one-up community. I'd like then to at least have a courtesy of mentioning when someone is (shadow) banned.
- cgh 8y agodang has great taste in fiction. I enjoyed our brief discussion of character names in Pynchon and Peake. Here's why I remember this: no one I know in real life reads fiction. I know plenty of people who read non-fiction (political stuff mostly), but no one in my circle takes the time to just sit back on a rainy Saturday and read something someone else made up. Even my wife is reading Bob Woodward's "Fear", and we aren't even American. So yeah, that little interaction made my day.
- clairity 8y agoyay pynchon! i buy trystero coffee just for the name (you have to be in the know to find it (but it's not that hard)).
- cgh 8y agoHa, that is excellent. I once thought that Pierce Inverarity would be a great name for a beer. It would be peak hipster pretentiousness: a brewery whose beers were named for Pynchon characters. Unfortunately, they'd probably all be IPAs.
- juped 8y agoI think they're good mods, but I don't think this thread is appropriate, nor would I want to have put them in the position of deciding whether to delete it bt making it, as the OP did.
- obituary_latte 8y agoThe odds of the mods deleting it seem pretty slim seeing as the author of the post is their boss man. The thread need not be deleted anyway. Nothing wrong with thanking some of the people that keep the site running smoothly. Especially on a day dedicated to giving thanks.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cbkeller 8y agoIf we want to be technical, I think there's also an argument to be made that moderation of online forms is a hard problem that "good hackers would find interesting" which would arguably satisfy the guideline that > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. and if there's a broad community sense that moderation is particularly good here, there may be something interesting to be learned from that. In any event, it's (American) thanksgiving and they're about the best mods I've seen!
- saganus 8y agoThe user "sama" (the OP) is Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator.
- coldtea 8y agoDang has done a very good job I must say -- haven't noticed sctb, which means he did a good job as well, not drawing attention to the moderation (which is what happens when it's done badly).
- gpvos 8y agosctb is a bit newer (since about a year or so?).
- JamesBarney 8y ago4+ years actually :)
- jrcii 8y agoFuck them. I've been shadow banned because I said oriental wasn't an offensive word, which every Asian friend I've ever had has confirmed. They're here to force San Fransisco liberal social justice politics down everyone's throat.
- kregasaurusrex 8y agoPromoting quality discussion and letting people share their experiences in a professional manner makes me a daily reader of HN. Thank you for your work!
- atdt 8y agoThanks, Dan and Scott!
- detaro 8y agoIndeed, thank you! I'm always impressed how quick and precise they reply when reached out to via e-mail, too.
- oh_sigh 8y agoWow, I never knew dang was named Dan. I always said it as the word dang in my head
- mistersquid 8y agoHear hear. Like so many of us here, I deeply appreciate all they do to keep the hive humming.
- mxpxrocks10 8y agosame here. thanks guys!
- longtimelu 8y agoFuck those guys
- huhhhugeugg 8y agoFuck dang, He's a lying piece of shit. The moderation policy is an excuse for excessive censorship that's unevenly applied. HN an west coast liberal elite echo chamber and dang a Butler. Fuck you dang.
- rdiddly 8y agoYep moderation is a thankless job, so today we ah, give thanks, as it were!
- yuhvvuucgd 8y agoF&3& dang, He's a lying piece of s&$@. The moderation policy is an excuse for excessive censorship that's unevenly applied. HN an west coast liberal elite echo chamber and dang a Butler. F#_$ you dang.
- boulos 8y agoYes, thanks! The level of conversation here is unmatched. The set of things Dan and Scott have done to improve upon even the historical baseline are amazing (e.g., resubmit to front page for good submissions that got missed). HN is where I’ve turned for years for honest discussion, and thanks to our moderators I expect it will be for years to come.
- nickpsecurity 8y agoAlthough Ive seen questionable decisions occasionally, over 99% of what Ive seen with showdead on was a tremendous volume of useless or negative comments HN is better of without. That's on top of work to stop things like vote manipulations. dang also intervened to calm my ass down in some scruffles. Agreeing or disagreeing, he always respinded to my questions or gripes in email with thoughtful points. So, thanks Dan and Scott for all the good work you do keeping the comment sections higher quality than most of the Internet. :)
- shawn 8y agoI am reposting this for the third time, because a mod has twice detached it (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18513479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18513479 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18514649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18514649). The following comment is neither off topic nor correct to detach. It is directly responsive to what nickpsecurity has written. So, for the third time, here it is again. Dan, if this incorrect use of detaching my comments persists, I will write software to automatically repost my comments when you detach them, cycling through various alt accounts, tunneling through tor as necessary. === Howdy from someone who writes substantive comments for the showdead audience. I'm https://lobste.rs/threads/shawn https://lobste.rs/threads/shawn on lobsters. I was embarrassed to be classified with the 99% of useless or negative comments, at first. But the truth is simple: few people who value their time write for the showdead audience. It’s so hard to participate constructively that it almost feels impossible. But it’s not. Till now, poor moderation decisions have caused community members to quietly leave – as yummyfajitas did – rather than risk standing up to Dan. After all, if the entire community likes him, the simplest explanation is that you are the problem, not the moderator. But nobody can be perfect all of the time. It’s inevitable that mistakes will be made, and it's worrying that Dan tries to seem like an omniscient, benevolent steward who makes no mistakes. If you try to disagree with some of his decisions publicly, you are eventually banned for doing so, regardless of truth. But for better or worse, that’s his choice to make. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153219 is a pretty standard example of what happens when you try to appeal a decision, or merely ask "Why?" publicly. (All of my emails to hn@ycombinator.com addressing Dan have been ignored for months, so there was little choice but to try asking on HN.) Feel free to privmsg me on lobsters if you want to chat further, or email (see profile).
- stefantalpalaru 8y agoYeah, let's all thank Ian Murdock's friends in need! 'Member when the suicidal millionaire was trying to delay his suicide by venting on Reddit and HN, but he was shunned by everybody and his threads were deleted? The next day you were all busy congratulating the censors for speeding up a natural process and assuring them they had no blood on their hands. Isn't social darwinism beautiful? Let's all celebrate the SV ethos with an article about the "riff raff" that doesn't deserve to live: https://justink.svbtle.com/open-letter-to-mayor-ed-lee-and-greg-suhr-police-chief https://justink.svbtle.com/open-letter-to-mayor-ed-lee-and-g...
- resters 8y agoWhat we don’t see is all the goodwill and interesting discussion that is suppressed by the mods. And fwiw it’s pretty disgusting that people feel the need to kiss up to them all the time on HN, but it’s like supplicating before anyone with power, it’s done for a reason and it’s an ugly aspect of humanity. Countless times I’ve seen interesting submissions buried, either by some behind-the-scenes process or via a title change that reverts to the authors boring or misleading title. There are surely some griefers who need to be policed, but the HN mods are accountable to nobody and there is no public record of their actions which might reveal improprieties or abuse of the trust placed in them by pg and the community. So I am thankful for any good intentions they may have, but sadly the evidence suggests that at least one of them is a bully who abuses the authoritarian power and lack of accountability. I’m not arguing that moderation isn’t necessary, just that unaccountable and non-transparent moderation decisions are a recipe for corruption and abuse of power. Basically, HN is run like Singapore. It’s very tidy but there is an authoritarian dimension that is unsettling. HN thrives when the mods are busy with other things and don’t have time to taze every so called flame war and “fix” every title.
- shawn 8y agothe evidence suggests that at least one of them is a bully who abuses the authoritarian power and lack of accountability. Unfortunately this seems accurate. I didn't want to believe it until experience forced me to reevaluate the situation. (Skimming over my comment history might confirm this for the curious: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=iplusplus https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=iplusplus In particular, note the very first comment on the account, and how that interaction went.) "Bully" is far too blunt, though. The issue is that no one is allowed to disagree with any decision. And some of those decisions are swift, harsh, and last months or sometimes years. There is no appeal process other than to say you were mistaken and that you've learned your lesson. To do otherwise is to earn yourself a permaban across all of your accounts, as Dan demonstrated on me.
- DonHopkins 8y agoAs a tribute to Dang, whose name you say when you make a mistake, here are some of my favorite Far Side cartoons: Some Weirdo: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f8/74/40/f8744035e15d69eb8fd4c70dea17c2e0.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f8/74/40/f8744035e15d69eb8fd4c70de... Monster Jobs: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/21/81/3e/21813e975f2aa35259246eecad69aee6.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/21/81/3e/21813e975f2aa35259246eeca... Vultures: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e4/d2/f3/e4d2f3b47c3de90e1a084d94ab24daa4.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e4/d2/f3/e4d2f3b47c3de90e1a084d94a... Construction Birds at Lunch: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/3b/c5/fd/3bc5fd323e791b6879529e6a5ab12dac.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/3b/c5/fd/3bc5fd323e791b6879529e6a5... Blizard's A-Comin': https://i.pinimg.com/736x/61/f9/bb/61f9bb66cc0e79f06246876ba2f4f512--christmas-humor-merry-christmas.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/736x/61/f9/bb/61f9bb66cc0e79f06246876ba... The Creeps: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/1c/5e/5a1c5ef2e9ab19d279704fc620b74d7f.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/1c/5e/5a1c5ef2e9ab19d27970... Superman In His Later Years: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/86/95/a7/8695a7c1cfffb69bc3b92c980ad7b185.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/86/95/a7/8695a7c1cfffb69bc3b92c980... Before Paper and Scissors: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a4/cf/ab/a4cfabe6847546e52343d4d1595ae69b.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a4/cf/ab/a4cfabe6847546e52343d4d15... Sorry, Buddy: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/49/6b/3a/496b3a234ddeca894887b249e6f2cadd.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/49/6b/3a/496b3a234ddeca894887b249e... Nerd! ...: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c9/08/a0/c908a02a8dfa42db9973f743b761777f.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c9/08/a0/c908a02a8dfa42db9973f743b... The Thanksgiving themed one that I googled and googled and googled for but couldn't find, which was taped to my mom's refrigerator, was the disappointed bird standing in front of the open refrigerator, lamenting: "Dang, somebody ate the middle out of the daddy longlegs!"
- jacquesm 8y agoCool, thank you for those. My personal favorites 'Roger Screws Up', 'Mr. Blanchard' and 'Car!', but no 'Dang!' in there.
- itronitron 8y agoi wonder if the Monster Jobs cartoon was the impetus for Monster.com
- 8y ago
- DonHopkins 8y agoI can't reply to them and would't want to, but the sputtering Tourettes of accusations from disgruntled shadow banned trolls in this thread is music to my ears -- the moderators are doing a bang-up job, and the system works! Thank you for "forcing San Fransisco liberal social justice politics down everyone's throat", you "west coast liberal elite echo chamber". Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!!! ;)
- anotherevan 8y agoOne feature on HN that was implemented a while ago now, but often crosses my mind to give thanks for is being able to collapse and expand comment threads. The fact that the site remembers them across page reloads is also a nice and useful touch. So thanks to those responsible.
- peterkelly 8y agoThe implementation is quite interesting :) https://news.ycombinator.com/hn.js https://news.ycombinator.com/hn.js
- aaaaaaass 8y agoLol are you serious? That is a basic requirement of a thread. It’s embarrassing they didn’t have it before.
- bachmeier 8y agoYou generally only hear the complaints, but I think most of us agree that the community is much better because of them.
- Gatsky 8y agoHere here, you are both doing a tough job really well.
- shawn 8y agoHowdy from someone who writes substantive comments for the showdead audience. I'm https://lobste.rs/threads/shawn https://lobste.rs/threads/shawn on lobsters. I was embarrassed to be classified with the 99% of useless or negative comments, at first. But the truth is simple: few people who value their time write for the showdead audience. It’s so hard to participate constructively that it almost feels impossible. But it’s not. Till now, poor moderation decisions have caused community members to quietly leave – as yummyfajitas did – rather than risk standing up to Dan. After all, if the entire community likes him, the simplest explanation is that you are the problem, not the moderator. But nobody can be perfect all of the time. It’s inevitable that mistakes will be made, and it's worrying that Dan tries to seem like an omniscient, benevolent steward who makes no mistakes. If you try to disagree with some of his decisions publicly, you are eventually banned for doing so, regardless of truth. But for better or worse, that’s his choice to make. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153219 is a pretty standard example of what happens when you try to appeal a decision, or merely ask "Why?" publicly. (All of my emails to hn@ycombinator.com addressing Dan have been ignored for months, so there was little choice but to try asking on HN.) Feel free to privmsg me on lobsters if you want to chat further, or email (see profile).
- tomcam 8y agoThey have both chastised me for "funny" (to me) or intemperate comments. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. But I have never, never felt that they had anything but the interest of the HN community as a whole. I have never, ever seen any online community moderated better or even remotely close to as well as HN. I am deeply thankful for HN. It is a surprisingly important part of my life, almost solely because of them.
- xoa 8y agoWell said, about the highest praise I think can be given for HN moderation (or moderation anywhere really) is that, like much of the best IT and security work and such, it's often like air: noticeable mainly through the continued existence of what it supports, or in its rare absences. The evidence of how hard a balance it is to strike even on a project mailing list or IRC channel let alone a bit public site is there in how many communities have collapsed over the years. Yet HN has continued to be, to be I guess different from the norm in terms of the intellectually stimulating things you can see and fascinating people you can come across, agree or not. It doesn't try to be everything or grow farther but do its thing well and it generally succeeds. The guidelines are human [1]. At this scale that continuing is itself pretty amazing and testament to what has to go on behind the scenes. So thank you to the team for that! 1: Perhaps this one more then anything is maybe my favorite nugget: >"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." This really does make such a different to repeat to myself. And even if the other person is not in fact acting in good faith, it doesn't hurt to try first and then disengage with reason rather then pure emotion.
- tinkerteller 8y agoYou are entitled to your opinions but your assertions are blantantly wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18514873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18514873
- yesenadam 8y agoEven assuming everything you say is 100% right, that wouldn't make any of those 'assertions' wrong, it seems to me.
- Kinnard 8y agoAnd for Arc too! http://arclanguage.org/forum http://arclanguage.org/forum Thanks Dan + Scott!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- codyb 8y agoHackernews and freenode are the best tech communities I've come across. Don't know where I'd be without the tremendous generosity of the persons in these communities. Currently interviewing with multiple companies from the who's hiring thread. And to be on topic, I'm not as familiar with sctb, but Dan's comments have always been nothing but constructive. They're never disparaging, they seem primarily to be nudges towards decent behavior. Thank you Dan! I'll keep an eye out for you Scott ;-). Cheers all, and happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating today.
- anonytrary 8y agowaits for low quality comment and dang's response
- forapurpose 8y agoAs importantly, I think they were doing a good job before and have improved. Not every successful person makes that effort. Great work guys.
- bePoliteAlways 8y agoThanks from my side. I have added only few comments but a regular visitor of this site for years now. A friend introduced me to this forum. I think moderators are doing an excellent job to keep this forum decent and interesting. Of course I also thank the people who make this forum and share interesting information.
- shawn 8y agoI am reposting this because a mod detached it (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18513479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18513479). I did in fact write this to nickpsecurity, as he and I are both active lobsters users and this is directly responsive to what he wrote above. The following comment is neither off topic nor correct to detach. So, here it is again. (Someone has already messaged me on lobsters expressing similar frustrations. To whoever is reading: please reach out. I have been collecting examples of bad behavior for some time and intend to release a list soon.) === Howdy from someone who writes substantive comments for the showdead audience. I'm https://lobste.rs/threads/shawn https://lobste.rs/threads/shawn on lobsters. I was embarrassed to be classified with the 99% of useless or negative comments, at first. But the truth is simple: few people who value their time write for the showdead audience. It’s so hard to participate constructively that it almost feels impossible. But it’s not. Till now, poor moderation decisions have caused community members to quietly leave – as yummyfajitas did – rather than risk standing up to Dan. After all, if the entire community likes him, the simplest explanation is that you are the problem, not the moderator. But nobody can be perfect all of the time. It’s inevitable that mistakes will be made, and it's worrying that Dan tries to seem like an omniscient, benevolent steward who makes no mistakes. If you try to disagree with some of his decisions publicly, you are eventually banned for doing so, regardless of truth. But for better or worse, that’s his choice to make. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153219 is a pretty standard example of what happens when you try to appeal a decision, or merely ask "Why?" publicly. (All of my emails to hn@ycombinator.com addressing Dan have been ignored for months, so there was little choice but to try asking on HN.) Feel free to privmsg me on lobsters if you want to chat further, or email (see profile).
- roymurdock 8y agofantastic job, great mods. thanks for your hard work.
- tinkerteller 8y agoWhile I know how hard these people work, I really cannot support your enthusiasm. The users are often banned at slightest opportunities and they are not even informed what they did wrong or the fact that they just got banned. They would just get dreaded “your are posting too fast” error and all their future posts and comments are automatically de-ranked forever with no recourse or appeal to these higher powers. I felt this was very similar to being placed on no-fly list which we as hacker community deride so much as infallible authoritarianism. As HN community is more and more becoming group think (watch how this post will be downvoted) and laying these extra layers of super powers punishing anyone ad hock doesn’t help. In few posts when I wrote non-popular opinion very respectfully these folks expressed their displeasure. Mods should NEVER do that. The sign of such required moderators is indicator of how broken the algorithms driving HN. Instead of fixing these fundamental tech issues, the powers behind HN have doubled down on exercising heavy handed dictatorships. The least they could have done but never have bothered is to at least tell people they punish what they did wrong, how do they fix it and get back in community. The best they could have done would b ego open source HN and have honest discussions about various issues we have as community so more brain power is available to solve these issues. That’s the hacker way. Update: Great! Group thinkers are already getting busy at casting downvotes.
- claudiawerner 8y ago>They would just get dreaded “your are posting too fast” error and all their future posts and comments are automatically de-ranked forever with no recourse or appeal to these higher powers. Hear hear. This is by far the worst part of HN. It makes me very annoyed, more than any discussion on this site has, to see that I'm posting too fast... By having a discussion or responding to multiple people. What a horrible restriction. HN is open source and you can see how they put a flag on your account if they think you argue too much.
- yesenadam 8y agoThe users are often banned at slightest opportunities Do you have any evidence whatever for that?
- black-tea 8y agoI do not post my thoughts on certain topics any more because I know I'll get banned for it. So you can thank them for your echo chamber.
- nolok 8y agoI have plenty of contrarian opinion on things, such as thinking Tesla is massively overvalued and their autopilot a scam, or my views on apple, etc... And while I may be down voted when posting them never ever have I feared a ban. Maybe to find the issue you should pay less attention to your opinion and more to how you express it. Disagreeing with people is okay, even on the Internet there isn't always a side that's right and one that's wrong.
- choot 8y agoI don't think dang is a good mod. They've removed my ability to downvote or make a new thread. In fact, they remind me of Stackoverflow community. I didn't ran into problem with sctb tho, i think he's fine. But dang, she needs tone down her impulse of over moderating everything. I don't agree with all their methods and opinions. Most threads which hurt business are deranked and removed. Specially, the ones which discuss the dark side of the startups, after all YC has to make sure no one rocks their boat. And the ones which discuss sexual harrasment or racism in YC Startups or Valley startups, are removed from the first page faster. Lifestyle business threads are also removed from first page so that no entrepreneur might imagine that something is possible without VC funding. Pretty, sure these guys get paid for their work. I don't see why should we be thankful afterall it's free market. If they don't like their job, someone else will. The purpose of this forum is to attract talent from all around the world to silicon valley and mining the bright people who comment there for ideas for next billion dollar startup which YC guys will fund as they got those investors on their side. Rest of us really don't benefit in material way other than probably a feeling of winning an argument on internet and raising testosterone/dopamine a bit.
- diegoperini 8y agoThank you guys! Your nicknames look like some UNIXy command line tools. :P
- tosh 8y agokudos! moderation is a lot of work that you typically only notice when it isn't happening. thanks a lot!