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> "If we didn't have a compensating factor, those stories would dominate the front page every day and HN would no longer follow its primary rule: "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". Of course that means HN is subject to our interpretation of what counts as "intellectual curiosity"

I appreciate the straight talk. I had some questions about the above. Suppose there was a post on the front page that was popular, and "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", but it happens to conflict with the interests of

A) HN,

B) YC, or

C) Specific individuals within YC, such as sama or pg

Can you guarantee that such stories will not be negatively moderated for that reason alone?

In the interests of transparency, can posts that are negatively moderated be publicly flagged, so that people can form their own opinions on whether the mods are using their powers in a fair and unbiased manner?

Most of us HN readers appreciate the work you're doing in moderating this forum. We're all in favor of mods using their powers in order to further the site's stated goals, but we're also very wary of mods using their powers in order to further their own personal agendas. We're worried that without sufficient transparency, it's only a matter of time before mods start abusing their powers. Hence why posts like this, and accusations of censorship, are such major topics of interest.




When stories are negative about YC or YC-funded companies, we moderate them less than we would if they were about something else. That doesn't mean we don't moderate them at all—it would be foolish to leave open any loophole that large on the internet—but we're conscious and careful about doing it less than we usually would. That is literally the first thing pg taught me about how to moderate HN, and the first thing I've taught every other moderator. I've written about this many times: e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=... and https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&date....

An example: the other day someone reposted an old (2011) controversy article about Airbnb. It was a me-too post of the kind users frequently submit in response to something currently on the front page, which tends to be bad for HN because it's repetitive. Also, the article was misleading in several ways (as I understand it) and long out of date in others. Our usual moderation practice is to penalize such stories—i.e. that are derivative of something else or clearly misleading—but we didn't do any of that because it was about a YC-funded startup. We're very clear about this with all YC founders and everyone who works for YC.

Stories about HN itself are a little different because of the evil catnip power of meta, but it's still the same principle: we don't suppress stuff because it's critical of us.

The idea that more data would clear everything up is a fallacy. "Just make everything public" is the sort of argument that sounds great on paper, but I think it would more likely cause just the opposite. People already take things out of context and construct fun, rage-inducing narratives about how awful we are—not because we're special, it's just a fact of life on the internet. Why would it ever stop? Of course it will never stop. What it would do is consume far more of our time and energy than it already does. That would steal resources from the things we should be doing to make HN better, basically giving a small number of users (some well-intentioned, others not so much) the power to do a denial-of-service attack on the good things of HN. Hacker News doesn't magically self-regulate, unfortunately; it takes a lot of work to keep it interesting and stave off entropy, and that's what we need to focus on. Every time one of these things comes up, it takes hours, sometimes a whole day, to answer people's questions about it. There's a burnout risk too.

So I think the balance we gradually arrived at over the years is the right one: be open about the principles we use to moderate HN and answer questions in specific cases. Unless something big happens to change my mind, that's how HN will continue to work; I believe it's what serves the community best as a whole.


We're all in favor of mods using their powers in order to further the site's stated goals, but we're also very wary of mods using their powers in order to further their own personal agendas.

HN is quite well moderated, IMO (and I have been a moderator, and I spend a LOT of my time rolling my eyes at how most mods are doing it wrong, damnit). Your comment is a kind of comment I see a lot on HN that sticks in my craw. I blogged about that very recently, so, it isn't you and I don't want to get into a pissing contest, but this is my cranky feeling about remarks of this ilk:

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/03/hello-did-yo...


Your blog post mainly consists of the statement:

"Get a clue, people. Hacker News is an awesome discussion forum because it serves a business purpose. Please stop acting like there is something bizarre or ethically questionable about the mods making sure that this free service actually serves the business that pays all the bills for it. Geez"

I don't agree with the the assertion that HN mainly "serves a business purpose", perhaps in its early days its main purpose was to funnel prospective people into YC (second step from pg's essays, I stumbled on HN this way back in the day).

While you consider the arguments as "inane", I think there is merit in people trying to understand the mechanisms on which HN is being moderated. The "Don't worry your pretty head, it's being done right" argument only drives up more suspicion, because this is exactly the way less than savory practices in government and elsewhere are hidden. I don't think this is the case with HN but trying to argue that the suspicions arise not (just) because people are just jerks or stupid.


I don't agree with the the assertion that HN mainly "serves a business purpose", perhaps in its early days its main purpose was to funnel prospective people into YC (second step from pg's essays, I stumbled on HN this way back in the day).

If HN serves no business purpose, why does it employ full-time paid moderators?


Obviously: They illegally magic up money in their basement from printing presses to support their idealistic desire to give all their time away for free, in spite of the inconvenient need to somehow also eat and keep a roof over their head.

/sarcasm


I don't understand what you're trying to say. Which part of my comment do you disagree with. I specifically mentioned that I and others appreciate the work the mods are currently doing.


You are wary of them furthering their personal agenda. I quoted that.

There seems to be this assumption that good only occurs when some Christ-like martyr falls on their sword for the benefit of other people. The entire world seems to think that the only good men are dead men who died as martyrs to a cause and if someone is getting something out of the deal, they are evil predators.

I loathe this idea with every fiber of my being and would like to see it wholly stamped out of existence. I believe HN is as high quality a forum as it is because it has a purpose that serves the needs of the people who created it and run it.

I have done moderating for free. At the scale of HN, unpaid mods would absolutely not work. I wholly approve of them having a personal agenda here. I think the fact that they need to meet a standard of enlightened self interest is part of why they do so much better than most moderating teams.

Is that clearer?


The best way to optimize HN's value to YC is simply by having it be as interesting as possible. Curiosity is the reason the community comes here, and the community coming here is why HN is valuable, so to do it any other way would trade a global optimum for a local one—basically trading the goose that lays golden eggs for some eggs. We're in an unusually fortunate position this way. If HN were a startup constantly needing to get its numbers up, we'd be under business pressure to do things that made HN less interesting. It's a happy coincidence that the most-interesting HN is also the HN that most serves YC's long-term interests.

Secondarily, HN has job ads and (more recently) 'Launch HNs' for startups that get special treatment. The job ads are written about in the FAQ and the launches eventually will be, but we're still figuring out the best way to do them. These are concessions HN grants to YC in return for being funded by YC, and our intent is to have them be both secondary and obvious. I agree that it's fair for HN to make these concessions and especially with your reason for saying so: it's the way to have a sustainably high-quality site, which does not come free. What HN doesn't do is make non-transparent concessions, like moderating anti-YC stories differently. But I've covered that elsewhere in the thread.


> "I wholly approve of them having a personal agenda here."

Any forum with a policy like that will never gain the credibility and respect that HN currently enjoys. If someone wants to create a private forum and moderate it in a way that furthers their personal agenda, as opposed to the community's interests, more power to them, but they should disclose it publicly. As community members, it is entirely reasonable if we ask them whether this is indeed the case.

Thankfully, Dang disagrees with you and isn't moderating HN in a personal-agenda-driven manner (see his post above).


Fwiw I hear you and Mz arguing much the same thing here. It's 'personal' in the sense of self-interested but not in the sense of a personal agenda beyond that... or at least we try hard not to be that way.


Your reply suggests a huge disconnect between my meaning and your interpretation of my words.




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