Comment by mhb

Comment by mhb 4 days ago

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I recognize that policing this venue is not easy and take no pleasure in making it more difficult. Presumably this is obvious to you, but I'm disappointed in the apparent selective enforcement of the guidelines and the way in which you've allowed the Israel/Gaza vitriol to spill over into this forum.

There are many larger and more significant injustices happening in the world and if it is important for Israel/Gaza to be discussed here, why are these other ones the victims of concern fatigue? The point is often made by commenters that the forum is too Western-centric for their liking. Your justification for allowing the Israel/Gaza discussion referred to it being of interest to a Western audience. Maybe that's a bug and not a feature and the reason Gaza is front of mind for this community is that there is insufficient exposure to the difficulties of the wider world.

This particular comment was, I thought, unrelated to the issue of politics insinuating itself here and represented a reasonable observation in the context of the original post.

plumb_bob_00 4 days ago

I don't think it has anything to do with Gaza discourse or concern fatigue. Religion is totally tangential to the article, and religious flamebait doubly so. When you wrote your comment surely you realized it was reductive and insulting? A caricature of religious people? If that wasn't the intention then I don't understand what was.

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tomhow 4 days ago

Our role here is not "policing", it's largely janitorial work, and, if it wasn't already clear, the main thing I'm appealing for is for users who joined HN in c. 2007, and thus presumably valued the site's purpose and ethos from the beginning, to assume more of a stately demeanour, rather than creating more messes for us to clean up.

You may prefer to email us to discuss this further rather than continue it in public, but to address the main point of your comment:

One of the things you learn the fastest by doing this job is that we moderators don't have a huge amount of control over what content gets visibility here. Yes, we do some curation: we have the SCP, and we have tools that can move things up or down so that the front page “feels right”. But nothing much happens without the support of the community. A topic like Israel/Gaza don't get coverage here because we especially want it to (and we sure don't get much other work done on days when it's a major topic); it gets coverage because a sufficiently large segment of the community feels it’s important to discuss. Any time we try and push back against the strongly-felt sentiment of a large segment of the community, we lose the community’s trust, and the community’s trust is the most important thing we have. If we lose it, we're out of business very fast.

> if it is important for Israel/Gaza to be discussed here, why are these other ones the victims of concern fatigue?

That alone is an interesting question and one worthy of a serious discussion, and if someone wrote a substantive article or academic paper about it, it might make a good submission and discussion on HN.

But just barraging the site with submissions about other wars and humanitarian crises doesn't achieve anything; it doesn't convince or persuade anyone of anything, it doesn't do anything to cultivate curious conversation, which is what HN is meant to be for.

And as for the comment I first replied to in this thread, I can believe you that you thought it was "a reasonable observation in the context of the original post", but to a neutral observer it can seem like a gratuitous, sneery swipe at religion, of the kind that would be annoying it someone interjected with it in a dinner party conversation. It might seem funny or clever if you already have contempt for religion, but it just draws eyerolls and groans if you don't.

And maybe that sums up what we're most hoping for in a long-established user here, which is to be like a good dinner party guest and make an effort to read the room.

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  • mhb 4 days ago

    I agree with your aspirations for this community. Which is why it is hard for me to understand how posts like [1] and [2] are allowed to persist. They are not in the spirit of HN which you are expressing here. The title of [1] alone would seem to immediately invite a deletion - it is obviously divisive, does not satisfy anyone's intellectual curiosity and is a clear invitation to a flame war. There is no reason to think that discussion here will be more enlightening than that found in plenty of other more suitable places where that topic is expected to be found.

    I am skeptical that there are a lot of participants here, including me, who wouldn't have been unhappy if they could not participate in that discussion. Contrary to your assertion that leaving posts like that is necessary to retain the trust of the community, I think the result is the opposite. Another aspect of trust is evenhanded enforcement. I don't understand how various comments responding to posts which are obvious flamebait are criticized while letting the original non-guideline-compliant, inciting item stand. Similarly, but less so for [2] - Eurovision?

    As a counterexample, I would suggest [3] which I suppose fits the guidelines of important news that members might miss otherwise.

    [1] Israel committing genocide in Gaza, scholars group says [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45094165]

    [2] Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45210867]

    [3] Ceasefire in Gaza approved by Israeli cabinet [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45534202]

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    • tomhow 4 days ago

      Thanks for responding constructively. I'm happy to explain our thoughts about these.

      First, both [1] and [2] spent no more than 32 minutes on the front page. [2] only spent 5 minutes on the front page. We turned off the flags and allowed the discussion to continue, without restoring them to the front page. Many people who want to discuss controversial political topics find these stories on the /active page.

      > The title of [1] alone would seem to immediately invite a deletion

      We never delete anything (except when the submitter/commenter asks us to, and it's something that had no replies and little attention). That's part of how we maintain trust. Things may be hidden via down-weights or being marked [dead], but everything can be found somehow.

      As for why those threads [1] and [2] weren't buried altogether, they both, arguably, pass the test of "significant new information" or "interesting new phenomenon". Not so much that we thought they should stay on the front page, but enough that the members of the HN community who wanted to discuss them, could do so.

      > I am skeptical that there are a lot of participants here, including me, who wouldn't have been unhappy if they could not participate in that discussion.

      This is what can only be learned when you do our job. Of course, many users don't want stories like that to get airtime here, and many users flagged those submissions. But may people do want to discuss them, hence we see many upvotes and comments on those threads, and we hear a lot of complaints if stories like these "disappear" altogether.

      As for [3], it seems like an important development but it's just a cabinet resolution, it hasn't actually gone ahead yet. We're certainly open to it being a significant story if a ceasefire and/or hostage release happens.

      I hope this helps with the understanding of these things. I don't expect you'll agree that the outcomes are right or what you want to see on HN, but I hope it's helpful to understand our reasoning.

      Edit: A final thought...

      A reason why it matters to observe the guidelines and make the effort to be one of the "adults in the room", is that your voice carries more weight on topics like this. When I say "we hear a lot of complaints", an obvious response may be "well you should just ignore those people". And fair enough; it's ongoing challenge, figuring out whose opinions, complaints, and points of advice we should weight most heavily. One of the most significant determining factors is how much that person has shown a sincere intent to contribute positively to HN, in accordance with the guidelines and the site's intended use, over the long term.

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      • mhb 4 days ago

        My incorrect misuse of "delete" was not intended to suggest that posts which are in flagrant violation of the guidelines be expunged from the site. Not only would marking them dead be preferable in the spirit of transparency and trust - it would also demonstrate examples of inappropriate topics.

        I intended [3] to be an example of a submission related to this same topic which was not in such obvious violation of any guidelines. Consequently it did not become a flame war. Perhaps also consequently it did not garner as much attention.

        For posts like these, there is a clear tension between what people want to discuss and what conforms to the guidelines. There are countless admonitions here about this place not becoming reddit. For these topics, you seem to be over-weighting participant preference in the direction of becoming more like the bad parts of reddit.

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        • tomhow 3 days ago

          It's fine to think that, and I hope you can trust that what we care most about is the trust and health of the overall community, and it's an ongoing challenge to find the right balance. We won't get it right every day or month but we hope we can over the long term. It's still important for all users to make an effort to observe the guidelines do their own bit to contribute constructively to HN.

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danielodievich 4 days ago

Personally, I thought that comment was a nicely sarcastic observation on the nature of humanity. Also quite nicely echoing the sentiments in The Culture books by Ian M. Banks.

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