Hopefully he'd include an entire chapter on why he and HN failed so spectacularly at pretty much every turn during the pandemic, especially when it came to the lab leak theory discussions.
I'm not sure what you mean by failed spectacularly, but if I'm reading you right, then your comment is a good example of a reliable phenomenon: nearly everyone with strong passions on a political topic feels like HN is biased against, and even is suppressing, their position. (In one memorable case, the topic we were accused of suppressing was actually the single-most-discussed topic on HN by a long shot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962. That's how intensely these passions work: even the biggest story gets perceived as censored.)
Let's look at the specific topic you mentioned. HN had plenty of discussions about the lab leak theory, starting in late 2020 and all through 2021. I've listed some below; there were others (and of course many more in 2022 and 2023). Some fell off the front page rather quickly but the biggest ones spent 15, 16, 18 hours on the front page.
Everyone's memory about the pandemic has been retroactively revised by now, but as I recall it, the rehabilitation of the lab leak theory in (semi-)mainstream discourse began when Nicholas Wade published his article in the Bulletin. HN discussed that one thoroughly (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432) and there had been several major frontpage threads even before that.
(There of course were many threads arguing the opposite as well - I'm just listing these because they're the relevant ones for answering the GP. If this post makes you feel like HN was too supportive of and/or too suppressive of the opposite side, please re-read the first paragraph - it seems to work the same way in all cases.)
> nearly everyone with strong passions on a political topic feels like HN is biased against, and even is suppressing, their position
I believe that you have expressed this stance for at least several years now.
Perhaps these people's perceptions are well founded. It seems as if an orthodoxy is being enforced & people whose opinions that run counter to the orthodoxy, particularly when the orthodoxy is covertly political while masquerading as a truism.
You replied to an email from me stating a similar position...except you pointed out opinions of both the left & right of the political divide are moderated. I don't think that's that's the important imbalance though. It's the unorthodox who are more heavily moderated. There's a double standard, where the orthodox frame is given far more leeway, even to the point of breaking guidelines, without moderation.
I don't see much public self reflection on the moderation...mostly denial & self justification whenever someone brings it up. Seems like the same gas lighting that the corporate media, "thought leaders", the management class, the expert class, & elites push onto their subjects.
Perhaps some of the "strong passions" are in part inflamed by the negative reinforcement of the moderation activities...being punished for expressing observations & thoughts, taking a stand on covertly political topics, expressing the unorthodox. I have learned to not care about being downvoted or flagged or being threatened to be banned from this site or told to slow down as long as I am seeking truth & expressing in pursuit of truth. If my karma goes negative, so be it. I've learned to not be impressed by vanity metrics.
Right now it seems that nobody moderates the moderators...meaning there's no effective feedback about moderation activity. The moderator can simply use the same canned denial whenever any form of critique comes up. The downvoter or flagger can use the same knee jerk reaction to quash any self determined unapproved expression. It's too easy. It creates covert hostility on the site.
One thing that could help is transparency of voting & flagging. The people who do these activities also have bias & I don't think it's always done in good faith nor does it always support the stated guidelines of this site. Perhaps a form to explain why the downvote or flagging was done & how the guidelines or culture of the site was violated would reduce retaliatory downvoting/flagging.
If I make a comment I put in effort to think about & express my opinion in the public record. I'm motivated to put forth this effort when I think like I can contribute some to the discussion...which often occurs when the trend of the discussion is perceived to possibly be leading down a false or unoptimal path...an unorthodox view.
Downvoting/flagging should also require effort to weed out retaliation & have a cost if done in bad faith. If someone feels justified & can express why they are justified in downvoting/flagging, why not make it public record as well? The person whose expression was downvoted or flagged will have feedback to improve their expression if they violated a HN guideline. As it stands now, the author has to guess...with a possibility that the downvoting/flagging occurred in bad faith.
I appreciate whoever reads this long comment. I have learned much about human & cultural nature in participating with this site & I am grateful for this.
I read it, though I don't feel like I've benefited at all.
Dang cited examples; you haven't.
You appear to be going on feeling. I'm an intuitive thinker and subject to that myself. When I've collected data, I often realise that I was wrong. So, three possibilities present themselves:
1. You are correct
2. You have a perceptual bias that makes moderation stick out more to you when it is on unorthodox positions
3. Unorthodox opinions may be correlated with negative tendencies such as lack of factual foundation or inflammatory tone, and are moderated for those reasons
I don't need to. For example, it it possible to cite examples of "bad faith" moderation? There's nothing to cite. It's an ephemeral action. There is no access to who downvoted the comment & why the comment was downvoted.
> You appear to be going on feeling. I'm an intuitive thinker and subject to that myself. When I've collected data, I often realise that I was wrong. So, three possibilities present themselves:
In this case, there is no data to collect. I also check my intuitions with data. I have also told others that they were wrong (period, end of story) only to realize later that they had some great points & were even right.
> You have a perceptual bias that makes moderation stick out more to you when it is on unorthodox positions
I often comment when my position is unorthodox as it's a motivation to express points that have not been expressed in the discussion. I will also add additional information in a reply. I think both tendencies fall within the HN guidelines & contribute to the value of the discussion...whether acknowledged or not.
> I read it, though I don't feel like I've benefited at all.
Not everyone is going to agree with all of your positions. If you only value those who agree with you or somehow contribute to your beliefs, I'm afraid you are handicapped in the pursuit of truth. I find value in your comment & took the effort to respond...This site has a guideline of "intellectual curiosity". Taking a pre-determined closed stance does not really follow that guideline.
> Unorthodox opinions may be correlated with negative tendencies such as lack of factual foundation or inflammatory tone, and are moderated for those reasons
Let's say someone exhibits these negative tendencies. If the moderator must justify the downvote/flag action in the public record, the original author will receive feedback on their lack of factual foundation or inflammatory tone & adjust their posts accordingly. Right now, there is only non-obvious negative feedback...unless someone who downvotes/flags posts a comment explaining the reason, which I observe to be rare.
There is also a double standard. Many orthodox opinions are upvoted without any factual foundation & have an inflammatory tone. I suppose my assertion could be tested with sentiment analysis & score. Are there any open source projects to perform such a test? How could the software developer code what is orthodox or unorthodox? I'm challenged in creating a system as to how to verify the claim with data. Public justification of the downvote/flag would help immensely.
I have to note that this is a weakness of a Positivisist philosophical position. What is easy to quantify is "more real" & what is difficult to quantify is "less real". What is easy to quantify can be cherry-picked to support a pre-conceived position. It's too easy to game the perception of reality. It's too easy to deny the existence of a phenomena when there are no handles to measure the phenomena. Conversely it's also easy to create a conspiracy theory about it. There is no practical way to verify or invalidate the claim in quantifiable terms, so one can only use logical/rational discourse, adopt heuristics, & express subjective perception.
"I don't need examples, you just have to believe that I'm right, trust me!"
Plus you seem to be confusing downvoting for moderation. It is not surprising that strong unorthodox views are downvoted. That's pretty much definitionally what "unorthodox" means, that most people won't like the view.
Tell me how I can cite an example of someone downvoting/flagging a post in "bad faith"? Perhaps I do have an example. My previous post in this thread was downvoted. Who downvoted it? Why was it downvoted? Was it downvoted in good faith? What HN guideline did it violate?
> Plus you seem to be confusing downvoting for moderation. It is not surprising that strong unorthodox views are downvoted. That's pretty much definitionally what "unorthodox" means, that most people won't like the view.
Then it should be added to the HN guidelines. @Dang, please codify "Don't post viewpoints that most people don't want to view" in the HN guidelines. @sanderjd expressed a reason for downvoting unorthodox views & if it's the position of people who downvote/flag posts, then let's make it an explicit rule.
Thank you to @sanderjd & whoever downvoted by previous comment in the thread (possibly also @sanderjd) for providing an example to discuss.
Yeah sorry, but it made me laugh because it was such a let down after reading all this text you and dang have been writing in this thread, and then I get here for this lack of payoff. That kind of dissonance gives me a sardonic humor reaction.
But to try to answer your questions: I think what's weird is that I kind of thought you were complaining about unfair flagging or moderator behavior resulting in comments or posts being removed unfairly. But if you're just complaining about downvoting behavior, well ... honestly that's pretty silly. People can downvote whatever they want. (And isn't it actually explicitly discouraged by the guidelines to complain about this?)
Edit to add (to respond to what I think you added after I first replied):
I guess I don't get what you want here. You have unorthodox views, and seem to foster that and take pride in it. That's great! The world totally does need people with unorthodox views! But you must know that those views will not be popular. That is what the word "unorthodox" means. So I don't get it, what do you want? You want rules enforcing a safe space to express unorthodox views without people disliking them? I'm sorry but that's not possible in a social space. You have to write on a blog with no comments or something if that's what you want.
But I do think people shouldn't downvote just for disagreement with the content. (FWIW, PG and Dang have expressed in the past that they don't agree with me on this, that it's fine to downvote just for disagreement, but I still think it's better not to.) But I think it's fine to downvote for bad faith. And as you've noted, this is totally subjective.
So yep, I downvoted your "I don't have to provide examples" comment (but not any of your others), because I thought it demonstrated that you weren't engaging with dang's many examples in good faith, but were just ranting at him about an unfairness in moderation (again: not just voting) that you've just intuited.
The HN system told me that I am "posting too fast" so this will be my last reply for now...
It's all part of the moderation process. Dang frequently mentions the HN guidelines & he justified his position with:
> nearly everyone with strong passions on a political topic feels like HN is biased against, and even is suppressing, their position
In my experience, downvoting & flagging behavior or negative feedback from @dang doing his moderation job can inflame strong passions & instantiating a covert retaliatory cycle. When someone feels that a viewpoint receives this sort of feedback, one is inclined to ask why? Extrapolating my experience/observations to others, I think transparent justification for moderation would provide feedback as to why, leading to less reply comments asking "why was this downvoted?" or "why was this flagged?". It also disincentivizes bad faith moderation activity.
I'm not complaining about downvoting or moderation per se, but expressing ways to make the HN guidelines more clear, create more fruitful discussions, improve feedback loops, & disincentivizing negative moderation/downvoting/flagging activity.
Edit:
> I guess I don't get what you want here. You have unorthodox views, and seem to foster that and take pride in it. That's great! The world totally does need people with unorthodox views! But you must know that those views will not be popular. That is what the word "unorthodox" means. So I don't get it, what do you want? You want rules enforcing a safe space to express unorthodox views without people disliking them? I'm sorry but that's not possible in a social space. You have to write on a blog with no comments or something if that's what you want.
I agree. All views are subject to criticism. The problem is it's too easy to anonymously knee-jerk a downvote as it often has a negative impact on the "intellectual curiousity" (a stated HN guideline) of the participants of the discussion because it adds the notion of punishment. I have learned to not feel a negative emotion toward downvotes & to incorporate the feedback as some sort of ephemeral HN community sentiment. However, it would be even better feedback to both the original author & the person moderating if the justifications were public.
> But I do think people shouldn't downvote just for disagreement with the content. (FWIW, PG and Dang have expressed in the past that they don't agree with me on this, that it's fine to downvote just for disagreement, but I still think it's better not to.) But I think it's fine to downvote for bad faith. And as you've noted, this is totally subjective.
It is. Which is why making the justification public helps in discerning the downvote feedback. I agree with you that knee-jerk downvoting ought to be discouraged in favor of justified downvoting. Overall, it would make a better, more thoughtful user experience & supports "intellectual curiosity".
> So yep, I downvoted your "I don't have to provide examples" comment (but not any of your others), because I thought it demonstrated that you weren't engaging with dang's many examples in good faith, but were just ranting at him about an unfairness in moderation (again: not just voting) that you've just intuited.
I disagree. Please don't confuse verbosity with a rant. I have to be explicit & thorough about my chain of reasoning.
Rather I have gone in-depth into the issues & repeatedly proposed a simple solution to the issues. I don't have a quantifiable study to point to & I don't think it's even practical to make one without funding & a considerable amount of innovation in software. Public justification of downvoting/flagging activity would help with making such a study. I greatly appreciate @dang for providing his reasoning for his moderation activity. It is very helpful & underappreciated. I think public justification of downvoting/flagging would help him in his job & make his job more rewarding to him.
> When someone feels that a viewpoint receives this sort of feedback, one is inclined to ask why?
But the answer to this "why?" is just super boring: it's because people don't like unorthodox views (that's what makes them unorthodox). It's not an enlightening answer.
> I think public justification of downvoting/flagging would help him in his job & make his job more rewarding to him.
I do think requiring a rationale for a flag is a good idea. I don't think so for a downvote.
The "solution" for downvotes is just to not worry about it so much.
You make many points worth responding to, but I'd like to remark that I can't agree with your contention that there is no feedback about moderation.
Much as it's discouraged, people frequently discuss moderation in hn comments, furthermore I know that lots of people (including ourselves) have engaged with dang privately about this. YMMV, of course, but I've found him nothing but humble and enthusiastic about improving the state of affairs around here. dang and I disagree on several value judgements, but overall I think it's miraculous we have such a good steward of the discussion here.
I appreciate Dang's effort & value him as a person. I think that he is limited in how effective he be can moderating the site's policies. Any single person would be limited. I think making moderation activity publically justified would lift a burden from Dang's shoulders, weed out bad faith moderation, & provide feedback to moderated authors. A win win win.
> I'm motivated to put forth this effort when I think like I can contribute some to the discussion...which often occurs when the trend of the discussion is perceived to possibly be leading down a false or unoptimal path...an unorthodox view.
I have read this sentence four times and I have no idea what it means.
Apologies for the mis-edited, grammatically incorrect, & unclear sentence.
> I have read this sentence four times and I have no idea what it means.
I'm motivated to make an effort to comment when I think I can contribute something to the discussion in accordance to the HN guidelines.
> which often occurs when the trend of the discussion is perceived to possibly be leading down a false or unoptimal path...an unorthodox view
I'm motivated to express views that I perceive to be valid/true/truthful when I have not seen these topics addressed. This means the expressed perspective is often unorthodox, since the orthodox perspective has already been addressed. These expressions are not always unorthodox, but I intuit that they are often more unorthodox than the norm.
My intention is to aid "intellectual curiosity" by expanding the breadth & depth of the discussion.
Do some quick breathing exercises, dang, because if the article is correct about you, that one thing that does enrage you is being mischaracterized or falsely accused, I sense some red haze in your near future induced by the previous commenter. :|
> if the article is correct about you, that one thing that does enrage you is being mischaracterized or falsely accused, [then you’re probably going to get angry]
Notice my statement was a conditional, premised on TFA being correct about something that does really bother him. What’s the relevance? That the previous commenter was doing that very thing TFA mentioned.
As much as I agree with the point dang and Ben made in the article about the importance of patience, and kindness, there does come a point where it’s not worth engaging patiently with someone, because it’s just not worth engaging with them at all. Being worthy of engagement requires some minimal shared sense of good faith. It seemed to me that the previous commenter who decided to set his/her hair on fire and try to curb stomp dang demonstrated a manifest lack of it.
>Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
>When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
>Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
I don't know how to break it down further.
>Being worthy of engagement requires some minimal shared sense of good faith.
I agree, but it goes for all of us and insults don't show good faith.
>It seemed to me that the previous commenter who decided to set his/her hair on fire and try to curb stomp dang demonstrated a manifest lack of it.
perhaps, but it's not up to me to determine how/if Dang responds to it. I've seen the alternate route where you remove obviously wrong comments and people cry "censorship" or "thin skinned mod" so there's no truly optimal way to handle it.
“What’s the relevance” was a rhetorical question teeing up the next sentence, not an actual question.
Then, after “answering” the rhetorical question I was prompting myself with, you say, “Insults don't show good faith,” as if that’s a telling point against me (or at least, that seemed to me to be the rhetorical structure of your response at that point). What insult(s) are you referring to, because at that point I was just puzzled.
Finally, you’re not the first one to say “it's not up to me to determine how/if Dang responds to it” in a way I interpret as suggesting I was saying that, so I’ll own that one. But I meant it more in a jokey sense of commiseration at the thankless task he has, given that in almost immediate response to a long-form article going into great depth illustrating his (earnestly attempted) thoughtfulness in moderating came an angry.l accusation (because the commenter disagreed with the substance of some moderation decisions, I guess? The anger in the comment seemed to me to come out of nowhere.)
I'd hope it would seem obvious, but since you admit to be puzzled:
tone is hard to convey on the internet and telling a mod to go outside is one of the most low hanging fruit insults on the internet. Given how much it is said unironically on other platforms I didn't appreciate seeing it here. That's the exact kind of stuff that pushed me off the more popular stuff.
> …telling a mod to go outside is one of the most low hanging fruit insults on the internet.
That’s funny, because that interpretation wasn’t anywhere on my mental horizon. It’s another example of something that has struck me going back to my days as a philosophy double major. Philosophers of language like to play up the power of referentiality and intentionality for communication. What always struck me as more impressive is just how much space there is in any given human communicative act for misunderstanding and how that seems more common, and vastly more undertheorized, than successful communication.
