Honest question, since I’ve seen the situation come up before: Would you be willing to modify the title of any post to be ‘accurate’ based on non-public information, without making that information public?
If so, how does one make that request, and what would the process look like?
There have been a few titles I knew to be extremely misleading or false, but never thought there was a way to rectify it without publicly providing information I wasn’t able to share openly.
It would depend on the specific circumstances, but I can imagine doing that, or perhaps there would be something else we could do that was better; it's hard to say in general, because cases like that are always very specific. We'd want to explain as much to the community as we could without harmful side-effects, but if someone's safety or privacy is at risk, I'm comfortable telling the community so, and I'm confident that the bulk of this community would respect that.
This is a really disappointing answer. I know, I know discussing moderation here is frowned upon... but come on. You’re basically saying there’s a secondary set of rules that are decided and disclosed arbitrarily.
It’s your choice how to moderate, I don’t have any expectation or illusion of a right to use this platform. But can you understand how this creates ambiguity for people who don’t know what the rules ultimately are, and how it creates huge openings for people to cry foul when there’s nothing unusual?
Wouldn’t it be better to refine the rules and disclosure when gaps arise, so everyone is participating in the same system?
If you think that moderating a system as complex as HN can be reduced to a single set of unambiguous formal rules, you're profoundly mistaken. I can understand how that could be disappointing, but what's disappointing you is reality, because that's impossible.
Also: discussing moderation is frowned upon? Where'd you get that idea? I've posted 50,000 comments discussing moderation with HN users (not to mention...checking...24,000 emails, apparently). I'm not saying it's my favorite thing to do, but nobody's frowning upon it. Perhaps you were thinking of the guideline asking people not to go on about getting downvoted?
There's simply no way to avoid judgment calls, interpretation, and general messes, and I'm not into pretending otherwise. The best we can offer is to answer any questions people have, and that I'm pretty diligent about.
> If you think that moderating a system as complex as HN can be reduced to a single set of unambiguous formal rules, you're profoundly mistaken.
I’m not saying it can be reduced to that. I’m saying it’s disappointing that the resolution to that is a side channel where decisions are made privately and have no way to resolve generally. This is especially a problem for you, as you field tens of thousands of things that may be similar but might not be equally convincing in private. It’s also a problem for you as people are understandably going to wonder what those private decisions entail.
> Also: discussing moderation is frowned upon? Where'd you get that idea? I've posted 50,000 comments discussing moderation with HN users (not to mention...checking...24,000 emails, apparently). I'm not saying it's my favorite thing to do, but nobody's frowning upon it. Perhaps you were thinking of the guideline asking people not to go on about getting downvoted?
I’m thinking of several instances seeing people who were concerned about moderation decisions being directed to email rather than the discussion in public.
> There's simply no way to avoid judgment calls, interpretation, and general messes, and I'm not into pretending otherwise. The best we can offer is to answer any questions people have, and that I'm pretty diligent about.
You are! You’re beyond diligent and I don’t know you but sometimes I see your attention to HN threads and hope you’re not burning out. My disappointment isn’t about you making a judgment call. My disappointment is that you made a side channel available for private judgment calls that might not be disclosed, both because that creates separate rules for people who do or don’t have access to it, and because it creates an opportunity for people to imagine things that might be private and create alternative narratives.
> Wouldn’t it be better to refine the rules and disclosure when gaps arise, so everyone is participating in the same system?
I don’t agree with this. I think this idea works in computing systems and thus at least programmers are inclined to think in this fashion, however I don’t believe this is how every other framework functions, e.g., the UK legal system which is largely down to interpretation (and IANAL).
I’m not looking at this from the perspective of law, I’m looking at it from the perspective of judgment that’s partly secret and unknowable.
HN already has a reputation for skewed moderation (certain sites are pre-banned, posting them pre-flags subsequent posts). Making it explicitly something exceptional without any way for people to know what the exception is... again creates a separate set of rules and a basis for people to air unfounded objections.
If HN wants to be Fight Club fine but I’m happy to be on record opposing that so long as I can.
Any kind of working moderation system is going to have a certain level of "we have to play it by ear" or else it gets overrun by rules lawyers playing to the word and not the spirit of imposed rules.
I wasn’t objecting to playing it by ear. I was objecting to committing to doing so and keeping it arbitrary.
Edit so I can hopefully make the spirit of my own complaint more clear: my puppy is defiant and stubborn and clever and a big doofus. Rules are a living document and they get revised all the time. If I communicate them and my expectations we grow together and move on to the next misunderstanding with some grace and patience. If I just decide that the rules change without saying what they are, I’m setting my pup up for failure and myself up for her resentment and an inclination to impose more strictness that she won’t understand.
In that case I don't think we're so far apart. I wasn't "just deciding" to arbitrarily change things. Someone asked me how we'd handle a particular kind of rare situation and I answered based on established practice.
In fact, if you read my comment closely, it's not hard to discern what the principles are: (1) being transparent with the community, (2) protecting people's safety and privacy, (3) if there's a conflict between (1) and (2), then (2) wins.
If so, how does one make that request, and what would the process look like?
There have been a few titles I knew to be extremely misleading or false, but never thought there was a way to rectify it without publicly providing information I wasn’t able to share openly.