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.<p>So today I wanted to say thanks, on behalf of the HN community.
They have both chastised me for "funny" (to me) or intemperate comments. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. But I have never, never felt that they had anything but the interest of the HN community as a whole.<p>I have never, ever seen any online community moderated better or even remotely close to as well as HN.<p>I am deeply thankful for HN. It is a surprisingly important part of my life, almost solely because of them.
dang has to be one of the most patient and civil mods I've ever come across on an internet forum of any kind. I try and mimic his style on assets that I have mod duties on.
as someone whose writing ends up on here from time to time, I really appreciate the HN mods' work to keep discussion on topic & constructive. It's obviously a tough job and every time I've emailed them with a concern they've been very helpful.
Yes, thanks! The level of conversation here is unmatched. The set of things Dan and Scott have done to improve upon even the historical baseline are amazing (e.g., resubmit to front page for good submissions that got missed). HN is where I’ve turned for years for honest discussion, and thanks to our moderators I expect it will be for years to come.
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!
One feature on HN that was implemented a while ago now, but often crosses my mind to give thanks for is being able to collapse and expand comment threads. The fact that the site remembers them across page reloads is also a nice and useful touch.<p>So thanks to those responsible.
Their nicks don't ring a bell with me, and I've been here for ~2 years.<p>Which probably means that what they're doing is a good thing though, not a lot of flame wars going on!
(Or alternatively, I just stay away from articles that might cause need for more moderation).<p>But thanks! Good mods are crucial for a place like this
While I know how hard these people work, I really cannot support your enthusiasm. The users are often banned at slightest opportunities and they are not even informed what they did wrong or the fact that they <i>just</i> got banned. They would just get dreaded “your are posting too fast” error and all their future posts and comments are automatically de-ranked forever with no recourse or appeal to these higher powers. I felt this was very similar to being placed on no-fly list which we as hacker community deride so much as infallible authoritarianism.<p>As HN community is more and more becoming group think (watch how this post will be downvoted) and laying these extra layers of super powers punishing anyone ad hock doesn’t help. In few posts when I wrote non-popular opinion very respectfully these folks expressed their displeasure. Mods should NEVER do that.<p>The sign of such required moderators is indicator of how broken the algorithms driving HN. Instead of fixing these fundamental tech issues, the powers behind HN have doubled down on exercising heavy handed dictatorships. The least they could have done but never have bothered is to at least tell people they punish what they did wrong, how do they fix it and get back in community. The best they could have done would b ego open source HN and have honest discussions about various issues we have as community so more brain power is available to solve these issues. That’s the hacker way.<p>Update:
Great! Group thinkers are already getting busy at casting downvotes.
Thank you Dan and Scott!<p>I appreciate the understanding, i once added a "post to HN" button to my RSS feed service and i posted too much..<p>I received a ban and only afterwards it seemed i was posting too much, but explained the situation and was met with understanding. Now, i'm much more considerate.<p>Thanks for the human moderation and keeping the quality on HN as good as possible.
I don't always agree with their moderation decisions, but am ever grateful for their fine work in maintaining the best discussion board on the Internet. Deepest thanks to you guys!
Hackernews and freenode are the best tech communities I've come across. Don't know where I'd be without the tremendous generosity of the persons in these communities. Currently interviewing with multiple companies from the who's hiring thread.<p>And to be on topic, I'm not as familiar with sctb, but Dan's comments have always been nothing but constructive. They're never disparaging, they seem primarily to be nudges towards decent behavior. Thank you Dan!<p>I'll keep an eye out for you Scott ;-).<p>Cheers all, and happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating today.
Although Ive seen questionable decisions occasionally, over 99% of what Ive seen with showdead on was a tremendous volume of useless or negative comments HN is better of without. That's on top of work to stop things like vote manipulations. dang also intervened to calm my ass down in some scruffles. Agreeing or disagreeing, he always respinded to my questions or gripes in email with thoughtful points.<p>So, thanks Dan and Scott for all the good work you do keeping the comment sections higher quality than most of the Internet. :)
Dang has done a very good job I must say -- haven't noticed sctb, which means he did a good job as well, not drawing attention to the moderation (which is what happens when it's done badly).
And for Arc too!<p><a href="http://arclanguage.org/forum" rel="nofollow">http://arclanguage.org/forum</a><p>Thanks Dan + Scott!
As a tribute to Dang, whose name you say when you make a mistake, here are some of my favorite Far Side cartoons:<p>Some Weirdo:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f8/74/40/f8744035e15d69eb8fd4c70dea17c2e0.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f8/74/40/f8744035e15d69eb8fd4c70de...</a><p>Monster Jobs:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/21/81/3e/21813e975f2aa35259246eecad69aee6.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/564x/21/81/3e/21813e975f2aa35259246eeca...</a><p>Vultures:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e4/d2/f3/e4d2f3b47c3de90e1a084d94ab24daa4.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e4/d2/f3/e4d2f3b47c3de90e1a084d94a...</a><p>Construction Birds at Lunch:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/3b/c5/fd/3bc5fd323e791b6879529e6a5ab12dac.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/564x/3b/c5/fd/3bc5fd323e791b6879529e6a5...</a><p>Blizard's A-Comin':
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/61/f9/bb/61f9bb66cc0e79f06246876ba2f4f512--christmas-humor-merry-christmas.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/736x/61/f9/bb/61f9bb66cc0e79f06246876ba...</a><p>The Creeps:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/1c/5e/5a1c5ef2e9ab19d279704fc620b74d7f.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/1c/5e/5a1c5ef2e9ab19d27970...</a><p>Superman In His Later Years:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/86/95/a7/8695a7c1cfffb69bc3b92c980ad7b185.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/564x/86/95/a7/8695a7c1cfffb69bc3b92c980...</a><p>Before Paper and Scissors:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a4/cf/ab/a4cfabe6847546e52343d4d1595ae69b.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a4/cf/ab/a4cfabe6847546e52343d4d15...</a><p>Sorry, Buddy:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/49/6b/3a/496b3a234ddeca894887b249e6f2cadd.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/564x/49/6b/3a/496b3a234ddeca894887b249e...</a><p>Nerd! ...:
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c9/08/a0/c908a02a8dfa42db9973f743b761777f.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c9/08/a0/c908a02a8dfa42db9973f743b...</a><p>The Thanksgiving themed one that I googled and googled and googled for but couldn't find, which was taped to my mom's refrigerator, was the disappointed bird standing in front of the open refrigerator, lamenting: "Dang, somebody ate the middle out of the daddy longlegs!"
Thanks guys. And — despite the fact that every time I say the phrase on HN I get downvoted to hell — I'm going to say it: not all heroes wear capes ;)
What we don’t see is all the goodwill and interesting discussion that is suppressed by the mods.<p>And fwiw it’s pretty disgusting that people feel the need to kiss up to them all the time on HN, but it’s like supplicating before anyone with power, it’s done for a reason and it’s an ugly aspect of humanity.<p>Countless times I’ve seen interesting submissions buried, either by some behind-the-scenes process or via a title change that reverts to the authors boring or misleading title.<p>There are surely some griefers who need to be policed, but the HN mods are accountable to nobody and there is no public record of their actions which might reveal improprieties or abuse of the trust placed in them by pg and the community.<p>So I am thankful for any good intentions they may have, but sadly the evidence suggests that at least one of them is a bully who abuses the authoritarian power and lack of accountability.<p>I’m not arguing that moderation isn’t necessary, just that unaccountable and non-transparent moderation decisions are a recipe for corruption and abuse of power.<p>Basically, HN is run like Singapore. It’s very tidy but there is an authoritarian dimension that is unsettling. HN thrives when the mods are busy with other things and don’t have time to taze every so called flame war and “fix” every title.
dang has great taste in fiction. I enjoyed our brief discussion of character names in Pynchon and Peake.<p>Here's why I remember this: no one I know in real life reads fiction. I know plenty of people who read non-fiction (political stuff mostly), but no one in my circle takes the time to just sit back on a rainy Saturday and read something someone else made up. Even my wife is reading Bob Woodward's "Fear", and we aren't even American. So yeah, that little interaction made my day.
Promoting quality discussion and letting people share their experiences in a professional manner makes me a daily reader of HN. Thank you for your work!
Thanks from my side. I have added only few comments but a regular visitor of this site for years now. A friend introduced me to this forum.<p>I think moderators are doing an excellent job to keep this forum decent and interesting.<p>Of course I also thank the people who make this forum and share interesting information.
I think they're good mods, but I don't think this thread is appropriate, nor would I want to have put them in the position of deciding whether to delete it bt making it, as the OP did.
Also thanks for being so super responsive and helpful to emails queries too. I've gotten replies from dang in matter of minutes! Amazing how well they do it.
I can't reply to them and would't want to, but the sputtering Tourettes of accusations from disgruntled shadow banned trolls in this thread is music to my ears -- the moderators are doing a bang-up job, and the system works!<p>Thank you for "forcing San Fransisco liberal social justice politics down everyone's throat", you "west coast liberal elite echo chamber". Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!!! ;)
I don't think dang is a good mod. They've removed my ability to downvote or make a new thread.<p>In fact, they remind me of Stackoverflow community.<p>I didn't ran into problem with sctb tho, i think he's fine. But dang, she needs tone down her impulse of over moderating everything.<p>I don't agree with all their methods and opinions. Most threads which hurt business are deranked and removed. Specially, the ones which discuss the dark side of the startups, after all YC has to make sure no one rocks their boat.<p>And the ones which discuss sexual harrasment or racism in YC Startups or Valley startups, are removed from the first page faster.<p>Lifestyle business threads are also removed from first page so that no entrepreneur might imagine that something is possible without VC funding.<p>Pretty, sure these guys get paid for their work. I don't see why should we be thankful afterall it's free market. If they don't like their job, someone else will.<p>The purpose of this forum is to attract talent from all around the world to silicon valley and mining the bright people who comment there for ideas for next billion dollar startup which YC guys will fund as they got those investors on their side.<p>Rest of us really don't benefit in material way other than probably a feeling of winning an argument on internet and raising testosterone/dopamine a bit.
dang has (nicely) called me out a couple of times for making comments that were rude or not productive. I’m glad that they’re trying to keep this place civil.