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PG: The biggest source of stress for me at YC was running HN

(twitter.com)
482 points ilamont | 2 comments | 11 Jul 20 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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_bxg1 ◴[11 Jul 20 23:14 UTC] No.23807033[source]▶
I honestly think the only solution is for individuals to recuse themselves from those networks (I say on one of those networks), lower the trust they place in digital information, etc. It's become clear that the downward spiral is intrinsic to the medium itself (or possibly just the scale). I don't believe that any amount of technology, or product-rethinking, or UX will change that. We just weren't meant to interact this way. My only hope is that people eventually get disenchanted or burned-out enough that they simply stop engaging.

I replied to the original tweet too ("what would you do if you were Jack Dorsey?"). I said I'd shut the whole thing down.

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asah ◴[11 Jul 20 23:33 UTC] No.23807161[source]▶
Sadly, the level headed people recuse themselves which only adds to the toxicity.
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newacct583 ◴[11 Jul 20 23:58 UTC] No.23807309[source]▶
Actually what happens is the level headed people on one side of an issue divide recuse themselves, leaving a "seemingly level-headed consensus echo chamber" behind. IMHO, that's worse. This account exists largely to counter exactly that trend. It's important (to me) that newcomers to the site don't get the idea that "hackers" are all fringe libertarians on every non-technical subject.
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dang ◴[12 Jul 20 00:07 UTC] No.23807375[source]▶
This site may feel like a "consensus echo chamber" but in reality it is nothing remotely close to that. I think you may be running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Since you report noticing fringe libertarians, we can be sure that you dislike fringe libertarianism. We can also be sure that they have just the opposite picture of HN, since everyone crafts their picture in the image of what they dislike, without realizing that they're doing that. It just feels like an objective picture. I can list dozens of examples of this, but I'll restrain myself for once and spare you.

Unfortunately, these extremely contradictory subjective images of HN seem to be a consequence of its structure, being non-siloed: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... This creates a paradox where precisely because the site is less divisive it feels more divisive—in the sense that it feels to people like it is dominated by their enemies, whoever their enemies may be. That's extremely bad for community, and I don't know what to do about it, other than post a version of this comment every time it comes up.

Thanks for caring about level-headeness, in any case.

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newacct583 ◴[12 Jul 20 00:16 UTC] No.23807422[source]▶
The sensitivity with which you replied just tells me I'm probably right about this. I assure you that, having dealt with HN readers in real life contexts on both sides of that divide, that the perception absolutely isn't symmetric. HN is seen as a "safe space" for some demographics and definitely as hostile by others. (Edit: I'll just say it. I've had multiple conversations with real life women where I have to make excuses for the perspective of posters here and explain why it's still a valuable forum anyway.)

I mean, I agree with you that we all have biases and blind spots in our perception. Which means... so do the mods. I comment because I want HN to continue to be a site that people like me want to comment on. The site that "people whose comments dang likes" want to comment on surely looks different.

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dang ◴[12 Jul 20 00:40 UTC] No.23807579[source]▶
I totally empathize with what it's like to try to defend HN as a worthy place to participate when you're talking with someone who has extremely strong feelings about how awful it is, and the fact that you're willing to do that makes me feel much more sympathy and common ground with you than any disagreement we may have on other points.

But I think your explanation of why this is is much too simplistic. The difference seems to be that you aren't being bombarded every day with utterly contradictory extremely strong feelings about how awful it is. If you were, you wouldn't be able to write what you just posted. Your judgment that the perception "isn't symmetric" is wildly out of line with what I encounter here, so one of us must be dealing with an extremely skewed sample. Perhaps you read more HN posts and talk to a wider variety of people about HN than I do. From my perspective, the links below are typical—and there are countless more where these came from. Of course, there are also countless links claiming exactly the opposite, but since you already believe that, they aren't the medicine in this case. I sample that list when responding to commenters who see things this way:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23729568

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23429442

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937781

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627676

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15388778

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915

A sample email, for a change of pace: "It's clear ycombinator is clearly culling right-wing opinions and thoughts. The only opinions allowed to remain on the site are left wing [...] What a fucking joke your site has become."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752730

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23719343

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wila ◴[12 Jul 20 01:30 UTC] No.23807863[source]▶
The problem is that as a moderator those type of posts get your attention. The outliers are the ones you worry about. As someone who participates I basically ignore those. There will always be complain posts even when everything is perfect. People might have had a bad day or there might be another reason for their reaction.
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dang ◴[12 Jul 20 01:34 UTC] No.23807888[source]▶
They are outliers in intensity only. They are not outliers in terms of the underlying phenomenon of how users arrive at their generalized perceptions of HN. On the contrary, the phenomenon itself is routine and typical. I would even call it universal.

If you see a comment complaining about "(Apple|Google|Microsoft) fanboys", that's much the same thing. The only actual information in such a comment is about the commenter—specifically, what they dislike (in this case, (Apple|Google|Microsoft)) and therefore what they notice and assigned greater weight to.

Such commenters routinely produce entirely opposite outputs about the exact same input set. Indeed their complaints are interchangeable except for the direction of bias they're complaining about. This phenomenon is so reliable that I'm not sure I've seen any more reliable phenomenon on HN. There is clearly a deep cognitive bias underlying it. I've done my best to try to explain what that is. I'd be interested in hearing other explanations, but so far most responses seem to deny the phenomenon, which from my perspective can't possibly be correct.

Where I think being a moderator makes a big difference is that we get bombarded with these contradictory complaints every day, often in personally abusive ways. You can't help but notice the contradictions when you're getting bashed for one reason one minute and than bashed for exactly the opposite reason the next. When one side calls you Hitler and the other side calls you Stalin, and each side complains bitterly how you ban everyone they agree with and moderate in the other's favor, the only sane response is to become curious about how the exact same thing can result in such an extreme variance in perception.

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intended ◴[12 Jul 20 03:35 UTC] No.23808582[source]▶
The question I would put to you is how do you guys maintain zen?

Sure HN isn't as bad as some places on the web, but tech still has its subcultures, blind spots and tribes - not to mention politics.

The biggest strain is mod burn out in many places, or even mods getting influenced by the content they police.

Do you guys have any plans or issues like that?

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1. dang ◴[12 Jul 20 03:45 UTC] No.23808624[source]▶
Sure, that's by far the biggest issue in my working life and therefore one of the biggest in my life. My approach is to try to take it as an opportunity for growth. I've spent a lot of time with forms of therapeutic process work that have affected me deeply and which overlap in some ways with the challenges of moderation. I sometimes imagine that there is also a spiritual aspect of sorts (I hesitate to use that word because it sounds inflated in an internet comment, but you touched on something similar when you said 'zen')—something that allows for an intense and crazy-making situation to perhaps be a catalyst if you use it in the right way.

Two simpler factors are (1) I'm paid to do it and (2) I have creative freedom, which is important to me. Just remembering those two things reminds me that I'm choosing to do this. That sounds so trivial but psychologically it's a big thing.

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2. intended ◴[12 Jul 20 04:22 UTC] No.23808780[source]▶
No I can see why it works for the situation you are in. It's sort of artisinal work in this case. Plus the act of moderation and just speech online is nearly 0 steps removed from they original techie ideals of exchanging and encouraging good ideas.

Plus its HN, so the mission is matched by positive history within the community.

Part of the reason I ask is because the handling of the mental costs of such a job is not something covered in the content/research on moderation. We know that employees at firms get PTSD for example, but that's also from staring at the highest levels of radioactive content. Those people need therapy.

For something much milder (hopefully), what do mods do to make peace with things and not lose their minds?