The typical such user has a long history of breaking the rules here, getting banned, and creating new accounts.
I'm hoping that you base your moderating decisions on the actions of the user in question ("human behind the keyboard" user regardless of account name) and not the "typical such user"? Do you have evidence that you are chosing not to release that 'james-watson' is such a user?
Most HN readers would be surprised to learn how small the number of users generating all this drama really is.
Perhaps there would be some way to publicly enlighten us about the serial offenders? For example, maybe you could explain the full backstory of why this post was killed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12313089.
In and of itself, it doesn't appear to be too egregious, and thus it would appear to bolster the poster's argument. But presumably there is more to the story?
this crappy, horribly run echo chamber again
The most interesting thing to me is that there are often multiple conflicting "echo chamber" claims in flight, with each side feeling like the lone outcast. There's an excellent example even in this subthread right here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12308842 (I'm referring to the back-and-forth in the thread, rather than the individual comment I linked).
To some, HN is a hotbed of socialism, and to others the epitome of evil capitalism. My recent conclusion is that (counterintuitively) HN is frequently accused of being an "echo chamber" because it has greater diversity of opinion than most other spaces online. The truly anechoic chambers aren't called out as such because the filtering is so effective, whereas "leaky" spaces like HN are assigned the label.
[Edit: I just noticed that "anechoic" doesn't quite fit the narrative here, but don't know how to reword it. The point was supposed to be that full echo chambers and anechoic chambers may have more in common with each other than each does with the points in the middle.]
Perversely, this might mean that accusations of being an echo chamber is a good metric for diversity of opinion. If the norm is that one lives in a world where one normally hears no fundamental disagreement, it can be disconcerting to be in a place where there is no clear "right way of thinking". Only when people stop proclaiming it to be an echo chamber is the canary dead.
I think what you say about the 'echo chamber' bias is right, and I enjoyed reading it because this is something I've been pondering for a while* . It's an interesting case of a point so subtle that nearly everyone not only misses it but is sure that the opposite is true.
To answer your other concerns: Yes, we go out of our way to try to make moderation decisions individually. I don't think it would work to publish information about users' past accounts—that would be a surefire shitstorm. As you and others already figured out, 12313089 was flagged by users—that's what [flagged] always means, both on comments and stories. Vouches were turned off on direct replies, but I was inspired by the below to enable them.
Oh, wow. I find myself equally glad and sad I missed this when it was originally happening. It's exactly the type of community meta-analysis and naval gazing I seem to be drawn to, but really isn't very good for me. :)
> The most interesting thing to me is that there are often multiple conflicting "echo chamber" claims in flight, with each side feeling like the lone outcast.
Confirmation bias (specifically confirmation bias on bias) + terse domain specific terminology (of many different dialects) favored by members for it's efficiency of expression and the subsequent loss of some implications by those less versed in that DSL + normal communication inefficiency in expressing thought = arguments where both sides are mostly in agreement + tendency to attribute opposing positions more strongly or more often then they actually exist.
> Perversely, this might mean that accusations of being an echo chamber is a good metric for diversity of opinion.
I think the contrapositive might be easier to rely on. No accusations of being an echo chamber probably means there isn't enough diversity, while accusations indicate that there's at least enough diversity for people to form a perception that there is an echo chamber, whether there is one or not.
That's the usual answer, but I think there may be more happening here than that. One slight oddity is that there was no "vouch" button visible to me on the dead comment. This made me wonder if there was a separate mechanism in play here. Out of self-interest, it also made me wonder if maybe my "vouching" privileges have been removed.
Separately, although multiple flags can kill a comment, it's still subject to moderator review. Since Dan commented in this thread, this probably implies that he consciously decided to let the user flagging stand rather than reverse it. My phrasing may have been poor, but I wondered why this was.
I've argued elsewhere in this thread that it would be interesting for both flags and downvotes to be public. I don't expect Dan to release this information here, but I'd personally be very interested to know who those user's were in this case, and on what basis they were flagging it.
Separately, your tone seems particularly condescending. Is this by design? Why?
> One slight oddity is that there was no "vouch" button visible to me on the dead comment.
The vouch button appears for me.
> and on what basis they were flagging it.
I didn't flag it, but it contains some deliberately provocative phrasing from someone who's previously had user flags (and a ban) for their posting style.
In particular:
>> the original post which dang replied to and subsequently killed.
These comments tend to attract downvotes and flags because they're untrue. For one thing that post doesn't appear to have been killed, and if it had been killed it probably would have been user flags, not mods, that did the killing.
Interesting. I might understand this now. To discourage retaliation (I think) both downvoting and flagging are not allowed for direct responses to one's own stories and comments. Since "vouch" was added late, it reuses the same logic, even though the "retaliatory vouching" is not really a danger.
I didn't flag it, but it contains some deliberately provocative phrasing from someone who's previously had user flags (and a ban) for their posting style.
In the context of discussing perceived bias in moderation, I didn't find that particular comment to deliberately provocative. While context is important for interpretation, I think flagging (like vouching) should be done comment-by-comment rather than based on previous actions under a different account. Killing comments based on historic behavior makes "recovery from mistakes" more difficult, whether the mistake is on the part of the moderator or the poster.
It's also not clear to me exactly why the FD3SA account (should we consider this the same user for purposes of flagging?) was banned. He ('james-watson') believes it was because the content of the posts and not the style. I doubted this, and suspect he was banned due to his expressed intention "to return hostility in kind". While bans on this basis may be good policy, if this is true 'james-watson' would have a reasonable argument that this is punishment is indeed for thoughtcrime. As one of the targets, you are of course entitled to have your own interpretation.
For one thing that post doesn't appear to have been killed, and if it had been killed it probably would have been user flags, not mods, that did the killing.
I agree, and made the same point here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12315815. While this might be a good reason to downvote or rebut, I don't think that flagging is an appropriate response to factual inaccuracy.
> To discourage retaliation (I think) both downvoting and flagging are not allowed for direct responses to one's own stories and comments.
Yep, that's exactly right. Downvotes are also disabled for comments older than a certain time interval (IIRC it's currently 8 hours).
> Since "vouch" was added late, it reuses the same logic, even though the "retaliatory vouching" is not really a danger.
That may well be true, and enabling the "vouch" link for replies to one's own comments sounds like a good idea. You should email hn@ycombinator.com about it -- they're usually very responsive.
I routinely flag drama. I didn't originally flag that comment, but I would have had I seen it before this part of the thread, because it's drama. The trend away from drama on this site in the modern Dan era of moderation is heartening, but we can always use less of it.
I'm hoping that you base your moderating decisions on the actions of the user in question ("human behind the keyboard" user regardless of account name) and not the "typical such user"? Do you have evidence that you are chosing not to release that 'james-watson' is such a user?
Most HN readers would be surprised to learn how small the number of users generating all this drama really is.
Perhaps there would be some way to publicly enlighten us about the serial offenders? For example, maybe you could explain the full backstory of why this post was killed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12313089.
In and of itself, it doesn't appear to be too egregious, and thus it would appear to bolster the poster's argument. But presumably there is more to the story?
this crappy, horribly run echo chamber again
The most interesting thing to me is that there are often multiple conflicting "echo chamber" claims in flight, with each side feeling like the lone outcast. There's an excellent example even in this subthread right here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12308842 (I'm referring to the back-and-forth in the thread, rather than the individual comment I linked).
To some, HN is a hotbed of socialism, and to others the epitome of evil capitalism. My recent conclusion is that (counterintuitively) HN is frequently accused of being an "echo chamber" because it has greater diversity of opinion than most other spaces online. The truly anechoic chambers aren't called out as such because the filtering is so effective, whereas "leaky" spaces like HN are assigned the label.
[Edit: I just noticed that "anechoic" doesn't quite fit the narrative here, but don't know how to reword it. The point was supposed to be that full echo chambers and anechoic chambers may have more in common with each other than each does with the points in the middle.]
Perversely, this might mean that accusations of being an echo chamber is a good metric for diversity of opinion. If the norm is that one lives in a world where one normally hears no fundamental disagreement, it can be disconcerting to be in a place where there is no clear "right way of thinking". Only when people stop proclaiming it to be an echo chamber is the canary dead.