I covered that point (or thought I did!) with the second sentence in my GP comment. The issue is what it does to us as a community. That's significant.
Comment in question concerned what the poster personally experienced, which clearly wasn't a pleasant/positive one. If you want to demand he prove he met Feinstein in person, well, that's certainly within your power as moderator and owner of this space.
But as far as what he owes to the community, I think he doesn't have to explain anything of his experience interacting with someone. He interacted with Feinstein, his takeaway was she is a "senile moron". I for one won't fault him for that, but you obviously have a different take and that's fine.
As an aside, the fact you flagged my comment as well implies very dark things. It is perhaps better I take my leave because I have no interest in enabling such matters. Though it does sadden me, in a deeply ironic way, that an American entity subscribes to such things. People have died to protect the right to speak ill of those in power.
Here, I rewrote the parent comment with a set of substantive points rather than namecalling. Same message, but much more constructive in nature.
“I met her in 2003, along with her aides at a party I was invited to (in a fluke) in Palm Springs.
She was ignorant of tech and science then, and now she's the same but more senile (as happens with age). Her aides, who ended up hanging out with me all weekend, were a perfect illustration of the classic trope of donor class kids who weren't that smart but got into ivy League schools by legacy admissions. Zero intellectual curiosity, super aware of social status, everything they said seemed preplanned and inauthentic.... Just left me feeling gross.”
I don’t think ‘dang would have had an issue with that wording. It doesn’t take much to be substantive rather than resorting to ad hominems; the latter is just easier.
Perhaps I've misunderstood what "flagged" means, then. I've always understood that as an indicator for a comment that you or another moderator found objectional, especially since flagged posts usually get hidden from further viewing. Learn something new everyday, as they say.
Flagging is an ability HN users get after attaining a certain level of karma; flagged posts are generally flagged as such by said users, not by the mods.
That he’s not a free speech absolutist? big deal, nobody is no platform is, thats the expected default behavior everywhere you go and there is zero reason why HN would be different. I’m not even going to go into how this is a private platform with clearly stated rules for you because it doesn't even matter, just take the L
None of those are implied. What I posted was bog-standard HN moderation. You could replace the name Feinstein with any other, or her party or politics with any other, and I'd have posted the same moderation response.
I'm not sure what you're finding hard to understand about HN having a guideline that asks people not to call names or do flamewar.
I don't have any complications with HN guidelines, but I do with the way they are enforced.
I see plenty of posts that call people, both ordinary and public figures, "names" that go unflagged and unmoderated. I see plenty of meme posts that don't get flagged and moderated. I see political threads and subthreads all the time despite politics strictly being off-limits per guidelines.
In fairness to you, you've never claimed HN is a free speech platform so I am perfectly fine with you publishing submitted threads and comments as you see fit. I'd even die, figuratively speaking, to protect your right to those freedoms of expression and association, and I would hope you will reciprocate the sentiment as a fellow American.
However, the reality is the HN guidelines are not enforced equally, fairly, and objectively, so you will have to excuse me for rolling my eyes at all the inevitable noise that will create (including mine). We can get away with calling Trump, Gates, and Jobs among others names but not Feinstein? Please. I realize HN is short on manpower, but that is not an excuse.
This very thread is a precise example of why moderation is hard and necessary. I read the whole thing and it has zero interesting substance, and does not do anything to satisfy curiosity, which is largely the point of HN.
I’d recommend reading the guidelines one more time.
The very fact this thread (it's political in nature) wasn't expunged at first sight is indication that moderation is dealt out unequally, unfairly, and unobjectively.
I reiterate: I am fine with dang enforcing his beliefs upon this publication as it is his property and he never so much as implied to support free speech. From the outset we deliberate and have our thoughts published here at his pleasure.
However, seeing as he has set out rules ("guidelines") he has an obligation to enforce them equally, fairly, and objectively.
I don't necessarily have a problem with him prohibiting insults, if that's his policy here then it is what it is because this is his publication space. But if he is defending Feinstein or any other particular individual specifically, that I do have a problem with and if such is made clear I will take my leave because I have no interest in enabling such matters.
You're drawing conclusions based on what you've happened to notice. That's a skewed sample because people notice the cases that they dislike [1]. Users with opposite politics to yours draw opposite conclusions. If you don't believe me, see the examples at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870. Here are a few more recent tidbits (links available upon request!):
"an extremely conservative place", "dang, who always hands out the bans to one side", "HackerNews Right-wing mods", "HN is surprisingly conservative", "dang, enabler of alt-right QAnon horseshit", "most of people on HN are ancap or fascists", "hacker news only cares about free speech when it can be used to dunk on the left", "zero left wing chatter. instant ban by this fash site", "I feel pretty confident about the right/libertarian bias to HN", "This place is a toilet of reactionary racists", "a white supremacist community", "generally nazi-sympathetic sociopaths", "fine with racist posts, right-wing, bigoted", "libertarian echo chamber", "a community full of some pretty extreme opinions, generally right-wing and regressive", "always been very right wing ... always filled with racist, sexist, right wing political abuse", "all of the libertarian BS here on HN", "many comments on HN of late have tilted radical right-wing", "filled with self obsessed tech bros who pretend they are libertarian but are actually just racists", "hn leans extremely conservative", "intolerable shithole full of pretend libertarians (e.g. racist white power sorts)", "it's capital that aligns to fascism", "pretty heavily Libertarian", "HN has always been a libertarian hell site", "pure, unadulterated, proto-fascist garbage for narcissistic jerks", "overwhelmingly hardcore libertarian forum", "right wing talking points", "gathering ground for aggrieved conservatives in tech", "HN is a weird place. Feels like the loudest political voices are alt-right-adjacent", "I knew HN was right wing but seriously guys?", "Yes, this website full of brain dead right wingers.", "A lot of fascists in this thread, to no one's surprise.", "a forum skewed libertarian techbros", "Literally anything left-of-right-of-centre immediately gets flagged (if not outright banned by the mods)", "moderation choices by dang (e.g. his pernicious need to pander to the anti-science, far-right crowd)"
(Before anyone goes "oho! that's because you are rightwing fascist enablers" - I've pasted these examples because the current complaint is that we're secret Feinsteinians. If the claim were the other way around I'd paste an opposite list. There's an endless supply, from all angles.)
Yes, there are plenty of cases where commenters break the rules and we don't do anything—but you're wrong to conclude that that's because we secretly agree with them. It's simply because there's far too much content for us to see it all. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it [2]. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
This attitude isn't a good look for the owners of this private platform and I don't think they'd agree with your perspective nor do most of the users. Food for thought.
My my, the users don't matter. Who does? Maybe only yieldcrv matters?
The owners have left this platform and mostly hang out on twitter.
> the moderations actions in their properties are not a mystery or unexpected
Something we could agree on until relatively recently, there seems to be a notable change in direction and a growing dissatisfaction online and offline amongst actual entrepreneurs (the sort that apply to ycombinator) and investors. If those users don't matter and start leaving what is this site actually for my friend?
If one can't call a person in power names, that implies many things you probably didn't want to imply.