As an early HN member who has seen comments decline since the early days, I like this change. This comment you've written falls in line as one I would not endorse. Would you say that Amazon is censoring their products because not all reviews show up on a given page? The community decides what shows up, that's not up to Amazon. Same thing going on here; the earliest and most active members are the ones who decide what comments are worthwhile. I welcome this change and think this is a great idea/experiment.

Then you are playing the exact game the parent is worried about. It is an extremely fair point, whether you agree with it or not. It is also something arguably outside of the standard view, and will therefore be de facto censored. I don't think comparing this to product reviews on Amazon makes sense; these are two completely different things.

It doesn't change that fact that this is censorship. If it wasn't any comment would have a chance to be shown. If the comment is bad it can be flagged or voted down, but still anyone can see it.

This is exactly the kind of comment I wouldn't endorse :)

Why? This is substantial and not nasty.

That's just a different point of view. Although it doesn't add a lot of context to his opinion.

That's the problem with moderation. People will tend to endorse what supports their beliefs. You can endorse a post you don't agree with.

It's hyperbole. That comment claims it will make HN _useless_.

What makes hyperbole so terrible? You recognized it was hyperbole, so you must also recognize the point he was making. It's funny to me that the GP is basically saying this change is unfavorable and will greatly diminish the value of HN to a great number of users, and your first "use" of this system is to say you would stifle that comment because it wouldn't affect you negatively. It's almost too perfect.

Guess what? your comment wouldn't be endorsed either.. You will not have any chance to even see that comment. It may be a good thing, but the current system has few issues one of them: it will be much harder for anyone to get to 1000+ karma so effectively current "crème de la crème" will be in total control. Remember how some news with NSA in the title were being censored? This new system is much worse than that.

Hacker News has a pretty strong history of being apolitical, and for good reasons. I don't see how stronger moderation of comments by the community is worse than encouraging political discussions. FWIW I'm strongly against the NSA stuff, but I understand that it starts to become a discussion similar to ones religious people hold rather than actual intellectual discussions about how to solve a problem or discover something. If I want to solve the problem with the NSA, I have to become politically active or donate to an organization like EFF so they can go do that for me, not have conversations online about them.

To be fair HN is not apolitical in the slightest. Sure, it is taboo to speak highly of any particular party by name but espousing particular political ideologies is not at all uncommon.

He wouldn't need to write that comment under the new system.

How is it much worse? For a comment to be censored, literally every user with over 1000 karma must refuse to endorse the comment. That doesn't sound like centralized thought control to me...

At least few 1000+karma users must endorse the comment for it to become visible.

Presumably there are quite a lot of those. It's not like your comment will be reviewed by The Cabal of Twelve. I certainly am not part of any Cabal, as fun as that sounds.

The problem I see now is we are killing each other. We got members who think they are the elite, the voice of the true HNers. And there is this other group which people are unhappy with their downvotes because people disagree with their alternative views. This extra moderation to me seems to be causing a war among HNers.

I agree 100%, HN should be an open place for discussion.

Better delete that comment or you'll lose a lot of karma. They keep down-voting me :)

Censorship is not always a bad thing, when used in moderation.

you are absolutely right sir! it is what I think will kill HN ...

HN was using more subtle censorship before, I'm glad that they are more forthcoming with what is actually visible now instead of pretending that this is an open forum.

They're keeping all the non-transparent, behind the scenes stuff though - except now it affects not just commenting yourself but also approving the wrong comments. Is the controversial but insightful comment you just approved going to pass the vague behind the scenes restrictions? Why risk it!