Here's the top of a conversation I had with him, starting with me:
Thanks for the thought out response. I agreed with just about everything you said, which makes this whole situation that much more frustrating. On one side, you're right and you're trying to create substantive discussion, which their sensationalist reporting often rubs against. On the other hand, [dead] in its current state is neither informative nor allows for substantive conversation about why it's [dead]. Ironically, the action of [dead]'ing looks like a malicious response from you and your colleagues -- something that's still hard for me to shake, especially considering who owns HN and who's within its network. Or at the very least, it looks malicious in the face of potentially simple UX changes.
His response:
Yes, I hear those frustrations and they all make sense. I'm afraid I'm pessimistic, though (having been at this job for many years) about the possibility of a fuller explanation ever clearing up these perceptions—for example the perception about "who owns HN and who's within its network" being the main factor in what gets marked as [dead] on the site. In my experience, (some) people are going to believe that, regardless of anything we say or do. A lot of people on the internet are primed to perceive maliciousness and, sadly, I don't think we have the power to change that.
I also don't think it's possible to "promote substantive discussion about why [a post' is dead" because that sort of meta-talk invariably becomes bogged down and self-referential. In my experience, such discussions don't lead anywhere productive, they just generate more and more of the same.
The moderation burden such meta-discussions impose is high, because if we don't answer and explain, our absence gets taken to mean that we're hiding something and/or that whatever people are accusing us of must be true. That's potentially disastrous for HN because it means that those moderation resources get sucked away from things that matter more for the quality of the site.
But I don't want to come across as too dismissive! I appreciate your openness and your suggestions and will think further about them.
”If people try to hold us accountable by talking among themselves about our actions, it takes away valuable time that could be used to do vaguely defined other actions” is not a terribly strong defense of moderation opacity.
Especially during a time when there is strong authoritarian pressure to suppress certain kinds of speech, and the result of your unaccountable actions is the suppression of that speech. The benefit of the doubt is rapidly being lost here.
edit: thank you for taking the time to email and post the response.
that doesn’t make any sense. NYT is paywalled and their links don’t get autokilled. (not your fault obviously, but whoever is calling the shots on this)
The ad: "Vigilant Mobile Companion transfers your mobile device into a powerful, secure license plate recognition and facial recognition data collection, analysys and alerting tool -- increasing productivity and insight, anywhere you go."
I was so used to fear of immigrants being used to simply win votes that I overlooked how effective it would be at justifying surveillance that would otherwise be unpopular with the constituents of both parties.
Dead the instant it hit the new page. dang, why do you let the bots bury certain news sources such as this one?
Best to email dang. Unless this thread gets popular he won't see it. 404media is auto-dead in most cases and requires a vouche. [1]
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co
Here's the top of a conversation I had with him, starting with me:
His response:”If people try to hold us accountable by talking among themselves about our actions, it takes away valuable time that could be used to do vaguely defined other actions” is not a terribly strong defense of moderation opacity.
Especially during a time when there is strong authoritarian pressure to suppress certain kinds of speech, and the result of your unaccountable actions is the suppression of that speech. The benefit of the doubt is rapidly being lost here.
edit: thank you for taking the time to email and post the response.
HN deads 404media links instantly.
is there a reason given anywhere for this? is there a place to see which sites are on the list?
Signup-walled.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Plenty of sites with signup walls get posted to HN and do just fine.
Because you can bypass the wall with archive.is or other tools. This website is closed tight.
that doesn’t make any sense. NYT is paywalled and their links don’t get autokilled. (not your fault obviously, but whoever is calling the shots on this)
yea it reeks of blanket excuse
The ad: "Vigilant Mobile Companion transfers your mobile device into a powerful, secure license plate recognition and facial recognition data collection, analysys and alerting tool -- increasing productivity and insight, anywhere you go."
I was so used to fear of immigrants being used to simply win votes that I overlooked how effective it would be at justifying surveillance that would otherwise be unpopular with the constituents of both parties.
[dead]
We have had mass surveillance for a generation now. It would be great if they used it for mass deportations.
Yeah but then Americans would have to do the jobs illegal immigrants are doing.
Even Trump had to admit that maybe the US needed work camps instead of deporting them.
We'll decide which jobs we want to work, thank you.
“On its website, Thomson Reuters markets CLEAR as a tool that has saved an abducted baby, identified a wanted man, and caught a sexual predator. “
Ah yes, think of the children! I wonder whose cronies will be whitelisted from this app.
huh, wow if only someone made an app to track ICE! /s