'sillysaurusx -- I respect your opinions. I know that I respect your opinions because you're able to use HackerNews as a bully pulpit to reach a very wide audience and I personally both enjoy and look forward to seeing your participation. I've often wished I had better opportunities to learn from you and always silently wish you well on your personal journey.
I also see from your Twitter reply that you feel HN hasn't necessarily been a great platform for your participation. I just want to counter that feeling with real-world result: I've read hundreds of your comments and at least a dozen of your submissions. I suspect HackerNews is actually a fantastically appropriate platform for you, and not an adversarial one.
At any rate, the disconnect between what I perceive as an outside observer vs. what you perceive as a "man in the arena"[0] is a fascinating phenomenon in its own right.
One thing I learned from moderating an internet community in the past: Some of the long-term users had become experts at skirting the rules. They had seen so many posts and watched so many other people get moderated that they learned how to walk right up to the line without explicitly crossing it.
Some times they'd become very good at baiting other people into breaking the rules. Or they would writing extremely inflammatory comments in a pseudo-cordial writing style that looked friendly/naïve but was actually crafted to incite a flame war.
There was a lot of "You should know better" admonishing these provocateur forum members, but for many the only solution was to remove them from the forum completely.
A couple of very good computer forums that I depended on years ago were slowly destroyed by "long term users". A small group seemed to think that their long history and prolific posting made it their playground. Little by little it became less worth my time to check it out every day. This place is always worth a glance. Every day. On the best discussions you can sense that people only post if they feel they really have something to add.
I love what Dang refers to as HN's non-silowed nature. It is easy to find useful and fascinating discussions on any topic. When I have the time and energy, sometimes I dive in for a few hours. When I come up for air I'm tired but generally pleased with experience.
A common complaint here is that it ain't what it used to be. There may be a little more fluff now but when it's good - It's darn good.
This reminds me of a pub we used to go to occasionally in Berkshire. When one of the crusty old locals went to the bar, they were always served first, even if other customers had already been waiting a while. Great for them, but made for an unwelcoming vibe that definitely reduced their custom. We only put up with it because they had a great garden area for kids.
That last bit reminds me of Orwell's description of his ideal pub, the "Moon Under Water":
The great surprise of the Moon Under Water is its garden. You go through a narrow passage leading out of the saloon, and find yourself in a fairly large garden with plane trees, under which there are little green tables with iron chairs round them. Up at one end of the garden there are swings and a chute for the children.
On summer evenings there are family parties, and you sit under the plane trees having beer or draught cider to the tune of delighted squeals from children going down the chute. The prams with the younger children are parked near the gate.
Many as are the virtues of the Moon Under Water, I think that the garden is its best feature, because it allows whole families to go there instead of Mum having to stay at home and mind the baby while Dad goes out alone.
And though, strictly speaking, they are only allowed in the garden, the children tend to seep into the pub and even to fetch drinks for their parents. This, I believe, is against the law, but it is a law that deserves to be broken, for it is the puritanical nonsense of excluding children—and therefore, to some extent, women—from pubs that has turned these places into mere boozing-shops instead of the family gathering-places that they ought to be.
The Moon Under Water is my ideal of what a pub should be—at any rate, in the London area. (The qualities one expects of a country pub are slightly different.)
I'm sure the Moon Under Water would treat newcomers well, though!
Another feature of that pub I remember was a setup where patrons could dress up in Velcro vests, then jump onto a big trampoline and hurl themselves up as high as possible onto a Velcro wall where they stuck like flies. Fun times, if not Orwellian.
Yup. The tricky bit of moderation to me is dealing with well known, long term users. I find the particularly troublesome sort being people who have a good amount of contributions to their name, but a variable temper. If somebody's always a jerk that's pretty easy. The tricky bit is when it's inconsistent.
Other long term community members learn what sets this person off and avoid it, and so everything seems quiet for weeks until somebody unaware hits on just the wrong subject, and this old, seemingly respected member explodes at them.
This is problematic for a community. New people need to either learn to navigate this minefield, or decide that it's not worth it and leave. And a lot will definitely pick the second option.
I ended up banning just a few such people and I'd say things have improved greatly as a result. Yes, there's a loss in term of contribution from very skilled people, but if a single person sours the mood for several dozen, it's not a good tradeoff. And they tend to drive away other skilled people as well, who can easily leave and be welcome must anywhere else that doesn't require them to tiptoe around that one tricky person.
Context that I had to look up: sillysaurusx on HN is theshawwn on Twitter, whose replies to the submitted tweet this is a response to. (What makes that relative clause so hard to parse?)
That's a tough cookie for sure but sillysauraus is not seeing the big picture.
It is tragic that we don't have yummyfajitas' or michaelochurch's takes which went against the grain and were probably interesting in some ways, but they in the end shot themselves in the foot by delivering their message in odiously-scented wrappings. Frequently employing ad hominem attacks, calling women names, etc. quickly evaporates the credibility of the person behind them, sours the culture of the community, and is just not a very good thing to do, irrespective of whatever validity or truth is being conveyed.
That is just because most people leave when they don't like something. In a bad environment you would expect the majority of those who stay to still find the environment good and themselves rational, with only a few outspoken against it. It is a relatively basic concept in markets, sociology, biology, information systems and reasoning.
The person you and the comment next to me are talking about is not here to defend themselves. They are specifically not here to defend themselves because they aren't allowed to. The justification for them not being allowed to is because they talked badly about someone else. Yet, it is apparently accepted to talk badly about them.
Your are even saying that we shouldn't trust this person because they in your opnion engaged in ad hominem attacks. But by doing so you are arguably performing an ad hominem attack yourself. And while you can certainly make a meta argument against that it would be close enough for many not to touch it.
This is why many people leave. Not because it's the Internet. Most of us have been around that. But because it is bad version of it.
You might think this doesn't have real consequences so I will give you an example. Because of the environment on Hacker News there is a lack of successful Europeans. This in turn results in there being an overwhelming consensus that is less likely you make good amounts of money in Europe. But this often isn't the case if you know what to do. It is just that those who do either leave or stop talking about it. Which continues the existing narrative as the participants reality continues to match their opinions. While in reality their opinion may not really be supported.
An environment with one sided environment isn't harmless. It might actually give you a worse life. But the same argument as before also applies here. Those who appreciate this are the first to leave. Leaving those who stay blind to what is happening.
I also see from your Twitter reply that you feel HN hasn't necessarily been a great platform for your participation. I just want to counter that feeling with real-world result: I've read hundreds of your comments and at least a dozen of your submissions. I suspect HackerNews is actually a fantastically appropriate platform for you, and not an adversarial one.
At any rate, the disconnect between what I perceive as an outside observer vs. what you perceive as a "man in the arena"[0] is a fascinating phenomenon in its own right.
0: https://prisonist.org/quotes-we-love-theodore-roosevelt-man-...