6 ms·

> Normally, of course, we'd downweight this sort of petty drama. Down weight? So you guys internally pick and choose topics to weight down? I thought HN was pu

> Normally, of course, we'd downweight this sort of petty drama. Down weight? So you guys internally pick and choose topics to weight down? I thought HN was purely community driven with only comments being moderated. Of course on the surface you guys say you only downweight petty drama but I truly wonder if that's actually true. The fact that you guys downweight anything without trusting the community makes me question how fair, balanced and unbiased things are on HN. Additionally the person who this tweet was about posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400221 and it doesn't seem like drama. It seems like injustice and misinterpretation and stubborn refusal. His only option is to appeal to the public but of course YC has to color it with their bias. It really looks like he was kicked out over a tweet from his perspective. Getting kicked out of YC may seem petty to YC but it is not petty to the person who was kicked out. Even Dang calling this kind of thing "petty drama" does unparalleled damage to his reputation. The right way to deal with this is not to touch this post and let paul make blog post or something and see if the community votes it up on HN.

dang 5y ago
> I thought HN was purely community driven with only comments being moderated I'm not sure I buy that, given how long you've been around HN and how much of the last 8 years I've spent explaining how HN is moderated. But FWIW, HN is a curated site, and always has been; there has never been any claim otherwise. HN's system is a complex interaction between three subsystems: community, software, and moderators. All three are necessary. If you or anyone would like to know more, here are some links to past explanations to start with. If there are still questions after familiarizing yourself with that material, I'd be happy to answer them. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curated&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22upvotes%20alone%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20failure%20modes%20moderat&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... > Of course on the surface you guys say you only downweight petty drama That is obviously not at all what I said.
- neonological 5y ago
  >That is obviously not at all what I said. You said, and I quote: "Normally, of course, we'd downweight this sort of petty drama. " So I responded with statement that at its' core means that any biased entity would say this to protect their own reputation regardless of whether it's true or not. I'm not saying what you said isn't true, but given your position there is conflict of interest. This is what someone in your position will always say. >I'm not sure I buy that, given how long you've been around HN and how much of the last 8 years I've spent explaining how HN is moderated. At most I thought you guys would moderate posts that were off topic and that kind of thing. But as much as this can be classified as "petty drama" it can also be classified as Negative viewpoints and news about Ycombinator. I did not realize you guys would insert your opinion on what things are considered "petty drama" and what things aren't. Yeah I've been here for a while and I was not aware this type of censorship was done. Sometimes a benevolent dictator is actually benevolent, sometimes not. Still there's nothing out of the norm here, nothing outrageous. Seems reasonable to say, don't trust news about YC on HN.
  - NicoJuicy 5y ago
    Please chill. If you've never moderated a forum, you should start realizing that moderation is key to having a good community. Cherry-picking statements and acting like this is not appreciated. Fyi: I've been banned once and thought it was justified. They've done an amazing job to keep the community healthy and that's really hard to do. What Dang mentioned seems pretty clear: we won't moderate this because it involves us, but this isn't the place for gossip. YC has > 150 companies per year. Not everything is perfect, not everything is known and people will always try to say their POV of the story. That's life, we'll see how this goes, but I'd rather see it on Reddit than here.
    - neonological 5y ago
      I am chill. You're misinterpreting things. It's perfectly reasonable things may never go perfect. However. Things become sketchy when Dang changes the title and pins his own opinion at the head of the comment section. Gossip and news are literally the same thing. It feeds and lights up the same areas of the brain. It's hard to say whether this is gossip or news because from this guys post it looks like he got kicked out of YC for trivial reasons. It can potentially say as much about the reputation of YC as it does about the guy who got kicked out. That sounds like news to me. >Cherry-picking statements and acting like this is not appreciated. You know I make a huge effort not to cherry pick anything. But it's inevitable things are usually interpreted this way because of the medium of communication or my own trouble with articulating the meaning of what I say. My experience is that when you "think" someone is cherry picking words on HN, usually he's not doing it on purpose and that's how he actually interpreted what you said. Look carefully at what I wrote. The only thing I am doing here is presenting a valid opinion that goes against the grain of public opinion. There's nothing else going on yet it's exploding into some kind of drama where you're telling me to "chill". Consider the fact that the bias lies with you. You interpreted my comment as not "chill" when I'm literally just calmly typing my thoughts. I am calm, but why did you insert emotion into my words where none initially existed? Because you are biased. My guess is that you injected hostility into my words because my opinion is simply against your opinion. It's normal human behavior to interpret a difference of opinion as an attack. I point this out to you so you can better understand yourself and to not classify a unique opinion as an attack. This is my interpretation of what's going on with you and I think it's pretty accurate.
late2part 5y ago
Don't you know how Reddit started?

dang 5y ago

> I thought HN was purely community driven with only comments being moderated I'm not sure I buy that, given how long you've been around HN and how much of the last 8 years I've spent explaining how HN is moderated. But FWIW, HN is a curated site, and always has been; there has never been any claim otherwise. HN's system is a complex interaction between three subsystems: community, software, and moderators. All three are necessary. If you or anyone would like to know more, here are some links to past explanations to start with. If there are still questions after familiarizing yourself with that material, I'd be happy to answer them. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curated&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22upvotes%20alone%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20failure%20modes%20moderat&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... > Of course on the surface you guys say you only downweight petty drama That is obviously not at all what I said.

neonological 5y ago
>That is obviously not at all what I said. You said, and I quote: "Normally, of course, we'd downweight this sort of petty drama. " So I responded with statement that at its' core means that any biased entity would say this to protect their own reputation regardless of whether it's true or not. I'm not saying what you said isn't true, but given your position there is conflict of interest. This is what someone in your position will always say. >I'm not sure I buy that, given how long you've been around HN and how much of the last 8 years I've spent explaining how HN is moderated. At most I thought you guys would moderate posts that were off topic and that kind of thing. But as much as this can be classified as "petty drama" it can also be classified as Negative viewpoints and news about Ycombinator. I did not realize you guys would insert your opinion on what things are considered "petty drama" and what things aren't. Yeah I've been here for a while and I was not aware this type of censorship was done. Sometimes a benevolent dictator is actually benevolent, sometimes not. Still there's nothing out of the norm here, nothing outrageous. Seems reasonable to say, don't trust news about YC on HN.
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Please chill. If you've never moderated a forum, you should start realizing that moderation is key to having a good community. Cherry-picking statements and acting like this is not appreciated. Fyi: I've been banned once and thought it was justified. They've done an amazing job to keep the community healthy and that's really hard to do. What Dang mentioned seems pretty clear: we won't moderate this because it involves us, but this isn't the place for gossip. YC has > 150 companies per year. Not everything is perfect, not everything is known and people will always try to say their POV of the story. That's life, we'll see how this goes, but I'd rather see it on Reddit than here.
  - neonological 5y ago
    I am chill. You're misinterpreting things. It's perfectly reasonable things may never go perfect. However. Things become sketchy when Dang changes the title and pins his own opinion at the head of the comment section. Gossip and news are literally the same thing. It feeds and lights up the same areas of the brain. It's hard to say whether this is gossip or news because from this guys post it looks like he got kicked out of YC for trivial reasons. It can potentially say as much about the reputation of YC as it does about the guy who got kicked out. That sounds like news to me. >Cherry-picking statements and acting like this is not appreciated. You know I make a huge effort not to cherry pick anything. But it's inevitable things are usually interpreted this way because of the medium of communication or my own trouble with articulating the meaning of what I say. My experience is that when you "think" someone is cherry picking words on HN, usually he's not doing it on purpose and that's how he actually interpreted what you said. Look carefully at what I wrote. The only thing I am doing here is presenting a valid opinion that goes against the grain of public opinion. There's nothing else going on yet it's exploding into some kind of drama where you're telling me to "chill". Consider the fact that the bias lies with you. You interpreted my comment as not "chill" when I'm literally just calmly typing my thoughts. I am calm, but why did you insert emotion into my words where none initially existed? Because you are biased. My guess is that you injected hostility into my words because my opinion is simply against your opinion. It's normal human behavior to interpret a difference of opinion as an attack. I point this out to you so you can better understand yourself and to not classify a unique opinion as an attack. This is my interpretation of what's going on with you and I think it's pretty accurate.

late2part 5y ago

Don't you know how Reddit started?