5 ms·

[flagged]

dang 2y ago
Since I just recently asked you to stop posting unsubstantive flamebait and you've continued to do it non-stop, I've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. I suppose I'd better add that (1) no, this has nothing to do with your political views, and (2) yes, we ban accounts who are doing the same thing with different politics. Oh and (3) yes, if other accounts keep doing this after we ask them to stop, we'll end up banning them as well. Macro trends notwithstanding (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=macro%20trends%20immune%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...), the amount of low-quality nastiness that HN has been hosting lately is a serious problem and we're not going to let it continue.
- computerthings 2y ago
  You also said this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43113282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43113282 breaks site guidelines. You just call things "flamebait" and that's that. > no, this has nothing to do with your political views Who believes that at this point? Speak up. > Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. If you want to order me to tolerate the fascism apologists has been having a field day on this site since over a month, you have to say that to my face. You do not have the personal capital or credibility to say "please". You made your bed, you sided with the anonymous, hooded executioners; we heard it the first time, now STFU already! And I'll speak my mind throttled to the showdead crowd, and if you make that impossible, of course I'll make new accounts. I'll make fake websites to have fake emails at JUST to not take orders from you.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  Most of that user's comments seem substantive to me, even if they're not always agreeable. Maybe you should be focusing more effort on users like this one, who has been posing nothing but abuse for a month: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=13_9_7_7_5_18 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=13_9_7_7_5_18 Sure their posts are hidden now, but why are they able to post at all? Why is anyone able to post like this? It's not good for the site, but it's endemic. Equating opinionated and acerbic comments like the one above with flamebait while saying and doing nothing about overtly abusive behavior makes no sense, and is not good for HN.
  - dang 2y ago
    > Maybe you should be focusing more effort on users like this one, who has been posing nothing but abuse for a month That account has been banned since the day it was created. Its comments have never been anything but [dead]. That's the maximum penalty that exists on HN. Several other accounts related to that one are also banned. This is standard. (For readers who don't have "showdead" turned on in their profile: the account anigbrowl mentioned has been posting things like "Shut up, $SLUR", "Fuck off, $SLUR", and worse. They are banned and all their comments are killed automatically. This means that no one sees them unless they turn the 'showdead' setting on in their profile. Any user is welcome to turn that setting on, but please don't forget that if you do, you're signing up to see the worst that the internet has to offer on HN.) Banned accounts can continue to post, but their comments are killed by default. Why? Because otherwise they'd just create new accounts and pick up where they left off. Since new accounts are unbanned at first, there would be a time lag before we could catch those and ban them again. In the meantime, more abusive posts would get through. In other words, allowing banned accounts to post (but making their posts default-invisible) is the way to minimize their effect on a large open forum like HN, where there's no barrier to creating accounts. Attempting to restrict them further would just end up exposing more people to the abusive posts. HN would have ceased to exist long ago if we were "doing nothing about overtly abusive behavior", so I was a little taken aback at your assumption there. I agree, of course, that 13_9_7_7_5_18's posts were worse than computerthings's. That's why we banned the former immediately, and the latter only after warning them (many warnings, actually, if you count previous accounts that we banned) and only after they'd broken the site guidelines many times.
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      In other words, allowing banned accounts to post (but making their posts default-invisible) is the way to minimize their effect on a large open forum like HN, where there's no barrier to creating accounts. Attempting to restrict them further would just end up exposing more people to the abusive posts. But maybe there should be some friction to creating accounts, like requiring a few worthwhile submissions before granting commenting privileges (which is already how it works with downvoting and flagging), or revealing the email addresses of persistently abusive accounts. Just wiping he accounts and forcing them to create new ones increases the friction, which lowers the incentive to keep doing it. HN would have ceased to exist long ago if we were "doing nothing about overtly abusive behavior", so I'm a little taken aback at your assumption that we were doing nothing about these. But you're not, really. Shadowbanning abuse accounts with a keyword filter is the weakest possible response, and that's why there's an endless influx of them. Since you can't really impose consequences (because usage is anonymous, any email address will do and VPNs make it impossible to track abusers), there should be some more friction to make casual abuse a less attractive pastime.
- alecco 2y ago
  I hope all this is not taking a toll on you. Stay healthy, Dang. You are doing a very good job. You can't make everybody happy.
  - neilyio 2y ago
    This whole place only stands up because of dang. Someday (too) soon, AI moderators will be all we have to keep the peace in our forums... and dang is our most precious training resource. I'm grateful he's so transparent in explaining his process.

[flagged]

dang 2y ago

Since I just recently asked you to stop posting unsubstantive flamebait and you've continued to do it non-stop, I've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. I suppose I'd better add that (1) no, this has nothing to do with your political views, and (2) yes, we ban accounts who are doing the same thing with different politics. Oh and (3) yes, if other accounts keep doing this after we ask them to stop, we'll end up banning them as well. Macro trends notwithstanding (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=macro%20trends%20immune%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...), the amount of low-quality nastiness that HN has been hosting lately is a serious problem and we're not going to let it continue.

computerthings 2y ago
You also said this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43113282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43113282 breaks site guidelines. You just call things "flamebait" and that's that. > no, this has nothing to do with your political views Who believes that at this point? Speak up. > Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. If you want to order me to tolerate the fascism apologists has been having a field day on this site since over a month, you have to say that to my face. You do not have the personal capital or credibility to say "please". You made your bed, you sided with the anonymous, hooded executioners; we heard it the first time, now STFU already! And I'll speak my mind throttled to the showdead crowd, and if you make that impossible, of course I'll make new accounts. I'll make fake websites to have fake emails at JUST to not take orders from you.
anigbrowl 2y ago
Most of that user's comments seem substantive to me, even if they're not always agreeable. Maybe you should be focusing more effort on users like this one, who has been posing nothing but abuse for a month: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=13_9_7_7_5_18 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=13_9_7_7_5_18 Sure their posts are hidden now, but why are they able to post at all? Why is anyone able to post like this? It's not good for the site, but it's endemic. Equating opinionated and acerbic comments like the one above with flamebait while saying and doing nothing about overtly abusive behavior makes no sense, and is not good for HN.
- dang 2y ago
  > Maybe you should be focusing more effort on users like this one, who has been posing nothing but abuse for a month That account has been banned since the day it was created. Its comments have never been anything but [dead]. That's the maximum penalty that exists on HN. Several other accounts related to that one are also banned. This is standard. (For readers who don't have "showdead" turned on in their profile: the account anigbrowl mentioned has been posting things like "Shut up, $SLUR", "Fuck off, $SLUR", and worse. They are banned and all their comments are killed automatically. This means that no one sees them unless they turn the 'showdead' setting on in their profile. Any user is welcome to turn that setting on, but please don't forget that if you do, you're signing up to see the worst that the internet has to offer on HN.) Banned accounts can continue to post, but their comments are killed by default. Why? Because otherwise they'd just create new accounts and pick up where they left off. Since new accounts are unbanned at first, there would be a time lag before we could catch those and ban them again. In the meantime, more abusive posts would get through. In other words, allowing banned accounts to post (but making their posts default-invisible) is the way to minimize their effect on a large open forum like HN, where there's no barrier to creating accounts. Attempting to restrict them further would just end up exposing more people to the abusive posts. HN would have ceased to exist long ago if we were "doing nothing about overtly abusive behavior", so I was a little taken aback at your assumption there. I agree, of course, that 13_9_7_7_5_18's posts were worse than computerthings's. That's why we banned the former immediately, and the latter only after warning them (many warnings, actually, if you count previous accounts that we banned) and only after they'd broken the site guidelines many times.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    In other words, allowing banned accounts to post (but making their posts default-invisible) is the way to minimize their effect on a large open forum like HN, where there's no barrier to creating accounts. Attempting to restrict them further would just end up exposing more people to the abusive posts. But maybe there should be some friction to creating accounts, like requiring a few worthwhile submissions before granting commenting privileges (which is already how it works with downvoting and flagging), or revealing the email addresses of persistently abusive accounts. Just wiping he accounts and forcing them to create new ones increases the friction, which lowers the incentive to keep doing it. HN would have ceased to exist long ago if we were "doing nothing about overtly abusive behavior", so I'm a little taken aback at your assumption that we were doing nothing about these. But you're not, really. Shadowbanning abuse accounts with a keyword filter is the weakest possible response, and that's why there's an endless influx of them. Since you can't really impose consequences (because usage is anonymous, any email address will do and VPNs make it impossible to track abusers), there should be some more friction to make casual abuse a less attractive pastime.
alecco 2y ago
I hope all this is not taking a toll on you. Stay healthy, Dang. You are doing a very good job. You can't make everybody happy.
- neilyio 2y ago
  This whole place only stands up because of dang. Someday (too) soon, AI moderators will be all we have to keep the peace in our forums... and dang is our most precious training resource. I'm grateful he's so transparent in explaining his process.