I apologize for not noticing this earlier, and how my own description of the issue allowed for confusion, and for any offense I may have caused you.
I am referring to replying to live comments on [dead] posts, which I am positive was possible before, because I do it fairly often until yesterday or so when I tried and it didn’t work.
As a journalist, this impacts my ability to interact with the public and corroborate information in the public good. As a HN user, it has a chilling effect on legitimate public discourse on this site.
When trying to explain my situation and experience to elicidate this distinction from others, they somehow missed it, and I missed what they were saying. Context was unclear and I assumed I understood that they meant what I thought I was saying, so I didn’t see their words as being incompatible with the statements I was making. I’ll accept responsibility for that, because it was unclear to others why I disagreed with them.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever been able to reply to a [dead] post that wasn’t [flagged][dead], but I will take your word for it that I can’t. I never paid attention to that distinction before, but now I can, now that I’m aware that there is one.
Does that seem like the source of the misunderstanding of what I was trying to say on your end? I can imagine to you it’s obvious what is or isn’t possible, but given how [dead] posts don’t seem to be indexed on Algolia, researching my own experience and that of others using HN in a historical manner to validate my own understanding of HN is hard.
Are [dead] posts and associated comments part of the API? How can I even research this if they’re not? If they are, is the API the only way to see them without manually incrementing post IDs? I’ve never used the API, but would be curious to try.
Can’t say I was surprised to be wrong, though I do make every effort to be right and accept correction graciously, and so I must admit my fault here, in sum and part.
I will also say that other HN users who aren’t mods have a weird interpretation of the guidelines as being proscriptive rather than descriptive. I don’t feel that’s what the intent or language of the guidelines actually supports, however.
I have been wrong before, in this thread, other threads, other posts, and I reserve the right to be wrong again, though never intentionally and always consistent with the guidelines as best as I understand them.
I am trying to post on HN in such a way as to encourage others to post their best. When I receive comments like I did in reply to this post, I grow as a person, and also understand a little more what people mean when they say “HN is mean”.
When my earnest, well-meaning post is met with personal attacks from senior users of HN, I can take it; I’m not new here. I just don’t want to find myself contributing negatively, and I managed to do that anyway, despite my attempts to the contrary. It’s hard to make good posts, and I certainly don’t always make it easy for myself or others, though I am doing my best with the replies I have to work with.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44065795
I often email, but this time I opted to have the conversation in public, so that both mods and users could participate and discuss on equal footing.
We're all interested in this by virtue of discussing it. It's clear the thing that happened did happen independently of my beliefs about it. Your comments verge on gaslighting mixed with solipsism and are definitely not steelmanning my points here. I think it's important, or I wouldn't have made my post. Considering your long history on the site, and obvious familiarity with the guidelines, I would consider your argumentative style in this thread to be in bad faith.
No, I don't think that's true at all. It's the whole premise of a crowdsourced/curated forum, that there is some 'we' that is not, in fact, interested in 'everything' - hence the curation, the votes, the rules, the moderation, the non-infinite-scrolling front page.
It's clear the thing that happened did happen independently of my beliefs about it
You should find out how clear that is by asking the people who can clarify it. That's all.
> No, I don't think that's true at all. It's the whole premise of crowdsourced/curated forum, that there is some 'we' that is not, in fact, interested in 'everything' - hence the curation, the votes, the rules, the moderation, the non-infinite-scrolling front page.
Yes, I was speaking inclusively of those people who have affirmatively expressed interest, whether it be via upvoting or commenting. Disagreement about the post or other engagement counts as expressing interest for the purposes of this discussion. We, as in you (pvg) and I (aspenmayer), specifically are interested in this post by dint and by virtue of discussing it, because it hasn't been dismissed out of hand.
>> It's clear the thing that happened did happen independently of my beliefs about it
> You should find out how clear that is by asking the people who can clarify it. That's all.
I am asking the people who can clarify it (HN moderators) on the site they moderate (Hacker News). HN mods are HN users also.
If you're not interested in my comments, you aren't obligated to reply if you can't be constructive and curious. I can't speak to your intent, but the effect you are having on me is anything but that. In polite conversation like HN, your intent matters, but the effects of your communication matter, also. It feels to me like you're concern trolling, ostensibly on behalf of HN, but that's not really consistent with the guidelines' admonition to encourage posts that increase in curiosity as they progress. This is not meant as a personal jab at you, as I do think of you positively on this site, and yet, to not mention how I feel you're coming across would be unfair to you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(slang)#Concern_troll
> [Concern trolls] profess a commitment to social change for ideals of justice, equality, and opportunity, and then abstain from and discourage all effective action for change. They are known by their brand, 'I agree with your ends but not your means'.
In the absence of any clear guideline on the protocol for asking HN users (including mods, who are users first) about their experience of using HN, I know of no better venue for my question.
Like, just assume that I emailed them also, or instead, and that I'm sharing it after the fact, if it helps you to relate to my post in good faith on the merits any post which is on-topic and within guidelines, like mine, deserves.
'Send meta questions to the mods' is all over the guidelines and countless mod comments over the years.
> 'Send meta questions to the mods' is all over the guidelines and countless mod comments over the years.
I am sending my meta question to the mods and users via the submit post text box. If I sent an email, it wouldn't work, because then only the mods would get my email. I don't understand if you're intentionally misunderstanding my aims and goals with my post, but I've made every effort to help you understand why I posted instead of emailed, as my goal was to have a conversation with the entire HN community, not just one subsection of it. There was simply no other way to structure my post so that it would satisfy you, I guess. I don't mean to be dismissive, I really don't know what you expect me to do with your replies in this thread. I can only assume you don't like people questioning things around here.
The site rules and conventions ask you not to do that, very straightforwardly and have for years. It's a trivial thing and you've written walls of text calling me names, making weird assumptions about my motives, etc, etc. It simply isn't true that there is 'an absence of protocol'. Perhaps you were unaware of it. Now you are, and you're right, this is a great place to wrap up.
The emperor has no clothes.
If you feel that I called you names because I used the word “concern troll,” that is just what the behavior is called in that context, and does not reflect my views on you as a person. I quite like you generally from what I have read of your output, even if I don’t agree with something. I don’t view disagreement about the guidelines with you as being a personal grievance, so I’m not sure why you feel attacked if I critique HN, but I’ll leave my words there. I respect you, though I don’t know you. I believe that reasonable people can disagree, and I aim to be reasonable here by admitting my mistake in understanding the difference between [flagged][dead] and [dead].
I won’t ask for an apology but I think from context it’s clear that we both feel we’re owed one. You got yours, and if you don’t need it or want it, that’s okay too. If you aren’t satisfied with it, I’m sure I’ll owe you a better one eventually, and I’ll give you that one for the same price as the last.
Are you able to identify anything you might have done differently in this thread? I know I am.
This might feel like snark, but I am really trying to approach this from a place of love for the community you have helped build, perhaps more than any other person. But when you treat me badly, it hurts, and I don’t know if you care or even perceive me at all.
Am I just a “wall of text” to you? I’m a real person, you know, trying to have a genuine interaction with people who care to hear it, not comply with HN guidelines or else.
As far as dead posts... I don't remember whether we used to be able to comment on them or not.
> As far as dead posts... I don't remember whether we used to be able to comment on them or not.
We did, and I have done so often. If I had to guess, this change occurred in the last month or two.
Sometimes community is the high bit, not the user.
I think your explanation is most likely because it assumes the least, but considering the way the guidelines have evolved, I’m willing to believe that this was being actively used by bad actors, and not simply a change that was easily justified once you saw fit to do so.
I have no access to the code base. My supposition is based on some professional exposure to “broken window policy”, the nature of the comments in this thread, and what a rational actor might do if similar remarks were likely to under dead comments if that rational actor was motivated to create an environment fostering intellectually interesting comments.
To put it another way, I assume in the long run Hobbes is usually accurate. The sovereign’s sole responsibility is to keep the peace, and a Platonic philosopher king is the best outcome we are likely to get…which is to say that peace is kept by means most conducive to making each social contract a win-win.
But it is still a social contract. If a person doesn’t find its execution acceptable, a philosopher king allows them to leave with their health intact.
Again, I did not change the codebase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clusivity
I agree with you about the pragmatic nature of moderation under discussion, to your point.
However, we don’t have any logs of moderator interventions in the functioning of the site in other ways. I’ve heard Dang say that one of my posts was downranked because it was basically a bad look for the #1 post on HN to be a post about n, where the post about n happened to be my post, and was on-topic for HN.
Edit for clarity: the interaction was over email or on HN but I don’t recall which; that is, not in literal earshot, and was direct communication to me, not indirect etc.