Actually, no one brought this to our attention until a user emailed about it earlier today. If you don't see something being moderated that should be, the likeliest explanation is the simplest: we just didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing all the posts on HN. There are far too many.
As the site guidelines explain, the way to react to a bad comment on HN is not to feed it by replying, but rather to flag it and (in egregious cases) to email us at [email protected]. Posting more comments complaining about lack of moderation doesn't help, for the same reason: we might not see it. In fact we probably won't, if we didn't see the original post in the first place. Making your complaint as sarcastic and cruel as you can doesn't add to its visibility.
Would you please review the site guidelines and follow them? They're written the way they are because, to avoid HN deteriorating further, users need to help preserve the site. Letting moderators know about egregious comments (in ways that work—flagging or emailing) is one way the guidelines ask you to do that. Not being snarky or calling names is another.
You and your alt account do not make up "the community". Since I make comments related to the articles and discussions then I am way more a part of the HN community than you are. Anyway, I invite you and your alt account to respond to the content of what I write in order to have a constructive conversation.
You say that, yet it didn't concern you enough to let us know about it? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
The idea that if you see something unmoderated, it must mean that the moderators secretly agree with it, is a non sequitur. What's actually happening is that we only see a portion of what gets posted to HN, and we can't moderate what we don't see. That's why the site guidelines ask you to flag bad comments and, in egregious cases, to email [email protected]. Fortunately, another user chose to follow the site guidelines and did so.
>The idea that if you see something unmoderated, it must mean that the moderators secretly agree with it, is a monster of a non sequitur.
Yes. That's what happens when you provide a self-publishing system. You agree to that contract whether you want to or not.
And it's not just this comment. It happens all the time.
>That's why the site guidelines ask you to flag bad comments
I literally cannot do that. Surely you know that.
>Fortunately, another user chose to follow the site guidelines and did so.
You don't think it's a problem that only one other user decided to _email_ you a problem. Doesn't that indicate a problem with the site culture?
I'm one person, a consumer of this site. Not a moderator. I called attention to it using the one capability given to me on this site. Saying "that's not good enough" is extremely asinine when I literally am not able to do anything else on the site.
It's trivial to get enough karma to flag posts on HN. We keep the threshold low on purpose so that anyone who wants to use HN as intended can easily cross it. The reason you haven't is not because we're somehow excluding you. It's because your many accounts consistently break the site guidelines, causing your posts to get downvoted.
But you can always email us, as anyone can. The fact that you didn't shows that you're not truly concerned about keeping HN free of the abuse you're complaining about. Rather, you're using other people's abusive comments as an excuse to post abusive comments of your own, smearing the community—who don't support the dreck that shows up here, just like it shows up everywhere on the public internet—and trying to undermine it. When you imply that moderators somehow support the dreck, I don't believe you're doing so in good faith. Anyone who's been around HN as long as you have knows that's false. Rather, the name for what you're doing is poisoning the well. That is another form of trolling.
Would you please stop creating accounts to break HN's guidelines with? This site is for people who sincerely want to use it as intended, and the intended use is laid out clearly at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: intellectual curiosity and kind, thoughtful discussion.
I noticed the sudden drop of points in my comments score in the past hour, which I must deduce is you going through and downvoting all my posts? Please remember the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
>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."
>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
OK, maybe you shared my account with someone who can downvote, it doesn't matter. If you have something to reply to my comments, you can reply to me directly with what you disagree with and why, I have always engaged productively with many people on HN whether their viewpoints are similar or different. From your prior comment I know you disagree with something I've said but you haven't stated why you think those things are incorrect, not that this thread is particularly relevant to all of them, it would make sense if you replied within the relevant discussions.
Well...I think all the basis is likely to be anecdotal unless someone performs a survey.
One data point: I've been doing this stuff for decades and I have never had reason to _read_ a patent filing. That has to indicate something, no? If they were so "inventive" wouldn't we need to read them to find out about new inventions. The only patents I've read were a) ones where I was the named inventor (even then I didn't understand them) and b) where I was employed as an expert by lawyers fighting trolls in litigation.
This exactly. The point of patents is to encourage people to publish their research, but I've literally never heard of anyone reading through software patents to get ideas. The entire putative reason for their existence is basically mythical.
Furthermore, our company lawyer would probably choke me if he caught me reading patents, as then we'd be subject to much higher damages if we were ever claimed to be infringing something.
>I've been doing this stuff for decades and I have never had reason to _read_ a patent filing
Knowing of a software patent exposes you to willful infringement, and you'd need a lawyer to understand what the bloody hell most software patents are even claiming to patent.
> If so, that doesn't excuse American citizens profiting off the suppression of civilians in other countries.
If the product can be trivially sourced elsewhere, what's the point? Do you believe it might hurt their image and sales elsewhere? Or is this just a moral line you hold dear?
Well, that's your opinion to hold, but I'm a bit more realpolitik about things. Unless withholding the materials are likely to damage police operational capability, it's an empty feel-good gesture.
There is nothing practical about your stance though, so you can't really call it realpolitik. You are being overly charitable about how you've arrived at your position.
>it's an empty feel-good gesture.
Not really, by not continuing trade you lend less credence to the actions of the government.
You think you're being intelligent about what's happening here but it's really just a case of you not understanding how actions are perceived by other organizations.
> There is nothing practical about your stance though, so you can't really call it realpolitik.
What isn't practical about it exactly? It is a decision with consequences with unclear benefit, predicated upon a moral stance.
> You are being overly charitable about how you've arrived at your position.
Well, my initial comment started off with a question prompting your moral hardline stance, so I'm making a bit of an assumption. I've also tried to take care to preface my stance with it's applicability as relates to pragmatism. Should it turn out the firm is the only possible firm that could supply the product, I would feel very strongly they should withhold sale based on my personal beliefs.
It also bears pointing out charitable interpretation is not only a rule of this site but a great principle in discourse.
> Not really, by not continuing trade you lend less credence to the actions of the government.
Of which government? The Chinese or the US? If the latter, it isn't as if we have a long history of fair treatment of foreign nations as relates to commerce. Belief that this is some kind of abberation is rather naive. The government sells lethal arms to conflict zones and dictators with little issue.
Do you only buy products from company’s where your politics align? For example, no Chinese products because that supports a communist regime? Not using Google because they actively suppress information in China?
If you're going to make a comparison you should do so where there is both power and information parity with the entity in question.
Not only am I not a commercial entity engaging in trade with these organizations, but it is technically impossible for me as a singular individual with no over all commercial power to engage in commerce in any form without involving Chinese products. And there are plenty of cases where people unknowingly do this despite their best efforts.
I can tell you this though: I'm not the commercial entity making a conscious and forthright decision to do it. And the products I interact with are not designed with the express purpose and utility of crowd control, however right or wrong.
The question you're proposing isn't equivalent to what's being discussed and is kind of just silly.
He's trying to frame the conversation in such a way that makes it seem like criticism of Assange is inherently misconstrued and misplaced, rendering it ineffectual.
He's clearly got a bone to pick and it isn't a truth bone.
Only for certain audiences of a particular age group.
It's not globally common. It's commonality doesn't remove the other characteristics of it which ruins the entire point of drawing attention to how often it's used.
Please don't be disingenuous when the conversation needs to be more constructive in the first place.
You mean the thing that was only suitable for real world use by in-the-wild development teams last year? Something no repo provider really fully supports even to this day?
>While well on the way, the full implementation of the changeset evolution concept is still in progress.
HG's entire system requires far more investment in the tool than git will ever ask of you. And you probably don't need the feature in the first place. I consider changeset evolution a nifty feature, but it's also a devop smell in my book.
The community has brought attention to this account multiple times with no actual action on your part.
I guess you might be too busy tone policing, as per usual: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993139