Dude, I ask not because I broke rules, but because there has been a LOT of fear-promoting bullshit being posted, by users who post a LOT of fear-promoting bullshit, and you allow it, and them, to remain active.

You normally have a very even hand on the tiller. Your words are always calm and rational. You frequently kill posts that delve into disinformation and nuttery. And yet you allow fear-mongering posts and fear-mongering nitwits to continue to harm the society in which you live and the site you moderate.

What am I to think?

In my opinion, you should realize that your view of this is shaped by your own strong commitment on the topics you care about. Because of that, you're much more likely to notice the points you disagree with, to overinterpret them (as you've done with the link you mentioned in the sibling comment), and to weight them more heavily. It's the charge of your own view that attracts this view of moderation, like a magnetic field attracting iron filings into its own pattern.

Pretty much everyone with strong views feels this way about HN moderation, but the specifics of what they feel (and see) are as different and as disagreeing amongst themselves as their underlying views are. We get this sort of complaint from every angle under the sun, literally every day. When you're forced to look at the problem from every perspective, you realize that the dynamic at work is completely different than what each specific perspective thinks it is. But those perspectives are awfully convincing, because the force driving the perception is so intense.

The very same intensity, of course, is what leads people to break the site guidelines in the first place, while feeling entirely justified in doing so—because, after all, one is so right and other people on the internet are so wrong. This is the dynamic we're trying, to the extent possible, to nudge discussion out of.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How tiresome that you continue to scold me for the mocking message that initiated this thread, instead of addressing your nigh-complete lack of moderation of the fear-mongering fringe that have identified HN as a place where they can wield influence without consequence.

MuchoMaas, who you claim to have banned repeatedly, has made 62 posts in one month, nearly 10% of which you have seen flagged and then deleted, but you claim “Moderation is necessarily inconsistent because … we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.”

But… you have seen it: you’ve been active in squelching a repeat offender that you well recognize as persistently problematic.

Of course, in your view, it is my cognitive bias that is causing me to see this as a problem, and not your cognitive bias that is causing you to turn a blind eye to the problem.

I don’t think I’m over-or even mis-interpreting anything: the proof is shown in your words and your actions: you are not effectively moderating the users who are using your social media platform to promote an agenda of fear and doubt.

Have the last word, Dan, because it’s evident that I’m pissing into the wind here. If anything, I expect I’ve only managed to entrench you deeper into supporting the FUD crew. What a shame.

> It's cognitive bias in both cases.

What I’m saying is maybe, just maybe, it’s your cognitive bias that is allowing month-old accounts to post endless fear-mongering pandemic posts.

Like this guy: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=MuchoMaas

We've banned that user many times. Moderation is necessarily inconsistent because (a) we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here, and (b) not everything we do is visible.

It's a huge non sequitur to go from seeing something like that to thinking that the moderators are secretly in cahoots with your enemies.