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Thank you to dang and sctb

950 points sama | 19 comments | 22 Nov 18 20:26 UTC | HN request time: 1.737s | source | bottom

Dan and Scott do an incredible amount of work behind the scenes to make Hacker News what it is. I have never met two more thoughtful community stewards. They usually get more hate than thanks, which they deal with cheerfully. This community means a lot to a lot of people.

So today I wanted to say thanks, on behalf of the HN community.

1. sudosteph ◴[22 Nov 18 21:47 UTC] No.18512782[source]▶
dang really is a great moderator. He's got a good eye for spotting problematic behavior, and a level head for dealing with it. He's set me straight in the past, and I'm glad he did. The way he remains both professional and empathetic, even when dealing with sensitive users and topics, really exudes the best of hacker news ethos. Here's to you, dang!
replies(1): >>18513530 #
2. danso ◴[23 Nov 18 01:41 UTC] No.18513785[source]▶
I didn't downvote but I think others might have because you leveled an allegation so vague as to be irrefutable. I think dang has been a great mod and have only seen the interactions that involve me, or have been upvoted. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in seeing substantive criticism from those who've experienced differently.
replies(2): >>18513973 #>>18515284 #
3. chris_wot ◴[23 Nov 18 02:37 UTC] No.18513973{3}[source]▶
It’s kind of hard to do. Almost certainly dang or another mod would rate limit or shadow ban me.

It’s their site to do as they will, but it strikes me as interesting that they are held up as saints when they are anything but. Note that I’m not saying they are monsters either, but as someone on the receiving end of dang’s conduct I personally cannot agree with this post. It’s not like they are really accountable for their actions.

replies(3): >>18514125 #>>18514499 #>>18514612 #
4. bhengaij ◴[23 Nov 18 03:24 UTC] No.18514125{4}[source]▶
They're just regular mods. On a toxic one-up community. I'd like then to at least have a courtesy of mentioning when someone is (shadow) banned.
replies(2): >>18514599 #>>18514745 #
5. dieterrams ◴[23 Nov 18 04:42 UTC] No.18514411[source]▶
I vouched for (undeaded) your comment, since I think the flagging/downvoting runs contrary to the principles of discourse we're (at least implicitly) celebrating here, smelling of tribalism/favoritism. Just because you view someone favorably, and someone else claims something negative about that person, doesn't mean you just get to flagbomb them into oblivion.

The right response here is simply to ask for further substantiation, as danso did. It's not clear to me that the mods are directly responsible for what you've experienced. If you haven't, I would contact them for clarification.

replies(2): >>18514796 #>>18517749 #
6. girvo ◴[23 Nov 18 05:13 UTC] No.18514499{4}[source]▶
> Almost certainly dang or another mod would rate limit or shadow ban me.

See that's where you lose me, I'm afraid. This is why it's vague to the point of being irrefutable.

7. ◴[23 Nov 18 05:42 UTC] No.18514599{5}[source]▶
8. ◴[23 Nov 18 05:45 UTC] No.18514612{4}[source]▶
9. reitanqild ◴[23 Nov 18 06:27 UTC] No.18514745{5}[source]▶
I think they don't shadow ban people anymore since sometime after pg left.

I am somewhat rate limited it seems for reasons but I won't complain. I'm possibly more annoying than them.

replies(1): >>18515421 #
10. pvg ◴[23 Nov 18 06:41 UTC] No.18514796{3}[source]▶
smelling of tribalism/favoritism.

Downvoting something for complaining about votes is fairly normal. Downvote baiting on top is flagworthy. I imagine lots of people quite sensibly apply these as a matter of course.

replies(2): >>18514846 #>>18527408 #
11. dieterrams ◴[23 Nov 18 06:54 UTC] No.18514846{4}[source]▶
One imagines they do. I'm not sure that's what's going on here, though.
replies(1): >>18515152 #
12. pvg ◴[23 Nov 18 08:29 UTC] No.18515152{5}[source]▶
Why wouldn't exactly that be going on here? It's a grade-A downvotable, flaggable comment.
replies(2): >>18517727 #>>18558204 #
13. waterhouse ◴[23 Nov 18 09:05 UTC] No.18515284{3}[source]▶
If there were a search engine that, say, turned up comment-pairs where dang replied to chris_wot, then it would be easy to get a sampling of their (public) interactions. I doubt any normal search engines (or even hn.algolia.com) do it. (And both posters are active enough that going through history is impractical. BTW, as one data point, 14 of dang's last 36 comments contain the word "please".) Perhaps someone has a database of HN comments that could be queried in such a way. But yeah, in the absence of links or a pointer to such a database, it's not substantiated and so the reader's evaluation is going to depend primarily on their prior opinions.
replies(1): >>18517042 #
14. choot ◴[23 Nov 18 09:40 UTC] No.18515421{6}[source]▶
> I think they don't shadow ban people anymore since sometime after pg left.

That's false. They also take away your individual ability to post a thread or upvote. They do this silently.

replies(1): >>18520491 #
15. danso ◴[23 Nov 18 15:44 UTC] No.18517042{4}[source]▶
It wouldn't cover situations where the mods took action or retaliated without publicly commenting. But to your question about a queryable database, such a thing exists on BigQuery: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17471117

edit: apparently it's updated daily, with 18,507,035 comments as of now: https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/table/bigquery-public-data...

16. ◴[23 Nov 18 17:25 UTC] No.18517727{6}[source]▶
17. chris_wot ◴[23 Nov 18 17:27 UTC] No.18517749{3}[source]▶
I have, they have admitted it in public comments to me already.
18. mercer ◴[25 Nov 18 16:11 UTC] No.18527408{4}[source]▶
With some exceptions I downvote any comment that complains about downvotes. I'm not 100% comfortable about it, and I might change my approach, but so far rigorously applying the rules seems to be working. I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one to do so.
19. dieterrams ◴[29 Nov 18 04:55 UTC] No.18558204{6}[source]▶
Jesus Christ.

Suppose he is being treated unfairly by the mods. Is that not worth complaining about?

I don't give a crap about some silly "downvote every comment complaining about downvotes" rule. Complaining about downvotes was frowned upon because people get inexplicably downvoted as a matter of course here, and the frequency of complaints was deemed sufficiently detracting to warrant being frowned upon. Being treated unfairly by the mods, however, is another matter entirely.

I haven't seen a preponderance of evidence suggesting the complaint was ill-founded, and the guy's tenure and comment history (what I looked through of it) do not suggest he's an ill-mannered troll, so I reserve judgement as to whether the complaint is in the wrong. Like any reasonable person would.