News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by tptacek on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @03:30PM (#34714521)
Dan is HN. The analogy to a subreddit is good; Dan has in fact much more control over HN than a moderator does of a subreddit.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by operatingthetan on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @03:33PM (#34714571)
YC has a vested interest in keeping the HN moderation a certain way, it bring a certain quality to the discourse but it's different than the structure of any sub.

Dang has a direct relationship with the owners of the site and responsibility to them, that relationship doesn't exist in any way on reddit. The mods run amok.

Suggesting HN is effectively just another subreddit dismisses several important differences.

Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by tptacek on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @03:37PM (#34714659)
No, I don't think that's how HN works at all. Dan can in fact run amok on HN. I don't believe there are significant pressures from YC on how Dan structures moderation here.

People unfamiliar with the setup here tend to think about YC first when they think about its management, but they should think about Dan first. My understanding is that things are pretty hands-off; even the perks that YC companies get here are, I believe, pretty much things Dan decided to give them.

Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by operatingthetan on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @03:43PM (#34714756)
>Dan can in fact run amok on HN. I don't believe there are significant pressures from YC on how Dan structures moderation here.

I'm sorry but this is absurd. If dang had a mental break and decided only cat picture posts were allowed going forward, there would definitely be a conversation. It being hands-off so far means that YC and dang have current consensus and trust exists.

Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by tptacek on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @03:56PM (#34714976)
The trust between YC and Dan regarding HN is probably the whole story about moderation here. Again: people think YC exerts a bunch of influence in how HN is moderated, and I doubt it exerts much influence at all. Dan is running this place the way he'd run it if YC didn't exist.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by operatingthetan on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @04:01PM (#34715074)
I'm not sure why you're belaboring the point because whether it's trust or a contractual agreement to run the site a certain way the result is the same. Either way works for my argument which was that the relationship is the difference from reddit's way. I don't care how the relationship is mediated.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by tptacek on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @04:07PM (#34715178)
About the most interesting thing you can say about YC's "vested interest" is that they have a vested interest in having HN continue to be moderated at Dan's total discretion. That interest would change, obviously, if Dan was raptured. But discussing the possibility of Dan's rapturing is not interesting, curious, or productive: we're not talking about the failure modes of moderation when moderators are incapacitated, we're talking about moderatorial discretion.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by operatingthetan on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @04:14PM (#34715273)
The point of community stability is that it contributes to both their reputation and YC investment class applicant pools.

>That interest would change, obviously, if Dan was raptured. But discussing the possibility of Dan's rapturing is not interesting, curious, or productive: we're not talking about the failure modes of moderation when moderators are incapacitated, we're talking about moderatorial discretion.

Wild monologue, I'm not sure it serves the conversation to express your tangents and then criticize them as if they were mine.

Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @01:27AM (#34800726)
>we're not talking about the failure modes of moderation when moderators are incapacitated, we're talking about moderatorial discretion.

I saw the conversation as one about the structure of moderation. Paying a mod that you meet with every week to sync up with is very different from someone making some small sub themselves and enaccting any rules that don't break the sitewide rules. Likewise, a mod has no vested interest in the site nor its policies.

That mod-admin relationship is special on reddit, in a mostly bad way since admins ignore many mod issues. Dang is more like a moderator and an admin rolled into one.

Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by searealist on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @11:11PM (#34719653)
Then explain why yummyfajitas was banned. Pressure from above.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by tptacek on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @11:34PM (#34719783)
He was banned for trolling after being repeatedly warned to stop. I have no idea why you thought that was "pressure from above". But there are people who think any ban on HN is an insidious plot by YC, so it's not worth arguing.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by searealist on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @11:37PM (#34719801)
yummyfajitas was 95 percentile for sincerity on this site. Calling him a troll is just easy.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by tptacek on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @11:40PM (#34719814)
His whole comment history and the warnings he received are right there for everybody to read. But, no, I'm sure you're right: it's all an elaborate plot, because BayesianWitch threatened to upend the YC hegemony.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by searealist on Thursday February 09, 2023 @12:02AM (#34719973)
He had no warnings for ages, then every comment was a warning. Obvious pressure from above for having an unpopular ideology.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by altairprime on Thursday February 09, 2023 @11:45AM (#34726803)
Being courteous, thoughtful, and taking best-faith interpretations are key aspects of the ideology that is mandatory under this site’s guidelines. This is a wildly unpopular ideology at other sites.

If a user or mod noticed them breaking those guidelines over time, and they continued doing so after being repeatedly warned, then they absolutely would have been banned for their ideology.

Otherwise, I don’t think anyone really cares how disagreeable their viewpoint is, so long as they’re courteous and contributing while expressing it (and it’s not derogatory, hate speech, etc).

Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @01:32AM (#34800754)
>This is a wildly unpopular ideology at other sites.

it's why I still end up browsing here even if I decide to delete multiple reddit accounts. People on reddit seem to have fallen into Poe's law of that Big Lewboski quote:

>"you're not wrong, Walter you're just an asshole!" >"Okay then"

Another forum gives some leeway for discarding courteousness if the post is truly dangerous to heed and absolutely needs to be smacked down as an example of what not to do. But reddit presses that button for every situation. pet being outside, car doing something that may be legal in their state but illegal in the commenter's state, one-sided relationship drama, video games. It's all just flooded with insults and in-fighting over inane stuff.

Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by MockObject on Thursday February 09, 2023 @04:37PM (#34731896)
I'd never heard of him, so I looked up his history. His banning causes me to reconsider participation in this forum at all.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by mistermann on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @06:41PM (#34717408)
> It being hands-off so far means that YC and dang have current consensus and trust exists.

But this is the very point of contention, and is not actually known.

Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by lmm on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @07:39PM (#34718019)
The fact of being an HN employee means that Dan has a sword of Damocles above his head the whole time. Whether or not YC are actually calling him up day-to-day and telling him to do X or Y is irrelevant; he's smart enough to figure out what X and Y are and do them pre-emptively, and he knows his livelihood depends on it.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by operatingthetan on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @08:10PM (#34718327)
Exactly, I'm so confused why people are speculating that dang is the only employee in the world not subject to a performance review. If someone is paying you, they have a stake in your work.
Re:Reddit Mods and Scaling Problems in Social Control by tptacek on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @10:09PM (#34719292)
No it doesn't. In fact, if I had to guess, the power dynamic probably goes the other way.