I do have some memories of not particularly trans positive comments in the comments section on earlier blogposts about their opengl/vulkan drivers, and also references to kiwi farms. I don't see such things commonly on most hacker news articles, but you'll usually see something like that anytime the article even incidentally has something to do with trans people.
The comment is not something someone would say to a person they intend to treat as a peer. I personally wouldn't post a comment like that unless I thought the person I was talking about was a danger to other people, regardless of how I felt.
Also, if I was Marcan or Lina^, then I would probably be the type of person who would like to read and participate in Hacker News, but would likely not because of that type of comment. (I suspect I could have found more toxic ones if I searched harder. This was in the first result) Since they have in effect been excluded from Hacker News, it feels fair to me that they put up an easily bypassable barrier to inform people visiting their site that they have been excluded, and what can be done to fix that.
^ I neither know nor care if the two are the same. I haven't reviewed the evidence, and it's bad internet educate to try and dig up someone's anonymous persona, so I won't try.
People with public personas get all sorts of criticism here though. I mean look at Matt Mullenweg and this whole WordPress debacle. If you're doing something, in public, that others think is a bit off, then they're going to comment.
Marcan is of course free to redirect HN visitors to his site to a long screed about how much he despises HN, just as Matt is free to block WP Engine users from his site and/or rant about them in WordPress feeds that show up in the admin panel.
But in both cases others are free to consider this sort of reaction quite ridiculous and unhelpful, and talk about it.
I think it is annoying to have to copy past the link in order to get around the essay too. I think its fine to say so. Its the people saying that HN isn't actually like how the essay represents HN to be that my original post and previous reply are talking about.
Given the comment thread you linked. I feel like photomatt has a very strong stomach. I'm glad I'm not him.
EDIT: I see where your comment is coming from, in that I did say that I thought it was fair to redirect to the essay. My opinion is that it was both fair to redirect to the essay, and fair for HN readers to find that redirect annoying. This all seems pretty civil to me, although some sibling comments do seem to be acting more hurt about it then I would expect.
I completely agree. I've not been on the receiving end of hate online, so I admit I may be insensitive, but this feels off.
I think blocking people from a certain community from accessing content, especially when the moderation team at least tries, is an odd approach at best. Why impede me from viewing content on your project just because the community I'm getting refered from has some moderation approaches you don't like?
>Why impede me from viewing content on your project just because the community I'm getting refered from has some moderation approaches you don't like?
Because some people have a very thin skin and low emotional maturity despite outstanding brilliance on technical topics: "I've been disrespected by a troll on HN once or twice, therefore HN is full of right wing trolls so I'm gonna block them all as revenge"
Kind of like that Twitter/Reddit/Discord mod who just bans everyone who disagrees with them. Swinging the ban hammer online is their way of fighting back to the social injustice they perceived on and offline, as IRL they're even afraid of making eye contact with the Doordash courier, let alone stand up for themselves in the face of a disagreement or argument, so these types of knee-jerk reactions are their blow-off valve.
See Elon Musk and his behavior online. He might be a genius in some areas, but that doesn't stop him from acting like a spoiled man-child online. A lot of people are like that unfortunately, like a lot, and they should be going to therapy and touching grass not on engaging more on social media.
The truth is, no matter how much good you do, the moment you put yourself out online, you're inevitably gonna have a certain percentage haters, downvotes, and generally rude comments thrown your way, and there's nothing you can do about it except ignore it. It's just inevitable and you can't let that get to you, you can't have a thin skin if you put yourself out online.
Imagine if Linus Torvalds would have rage-quit like that in the 90s every time someone negatively criticized him or his work. OSS devs back then were cut from a different cloth, today everyone's offended by everything.
This doesn't reflect well on Asahi Linux. It feels similar to the WordPress drama of the past few weeks: individual people have a personal vendetta and are holding an open-source project hostage. I'm certain not all WordPress or Linux maintainers are behind their respective dramas but are inevitably pulled into it.
> This may surprise you as a HN user, since overly hateful content is indeed often flagged and not immediately visible in HN top-level comment sections. While this is true, there is a major flaw in the HN moderation mechanism that enables abuse to continue unabated. This is the fact that, when a comment is flagged and killed, its child subthread is not. Once the high-level comment is no longer visible in the top-level comment section by default, this significantly reduces moderation activity in the subthread, as users are less likely to click to expand it. The deeper you go, the less likely it is for content to be moderated.
Seems like a reasonable explanation why you might feel that way. I similarly haven't noticed that kind of rhetoric but I also haven't delved down into subthreads much
The solution is simply not to engage. The expectation of the author appears to be that everybody must change into using a social behavior they expect. I'd ask, why don't they change themselves instead? ;)
if the comment is flagged then it should be visible only if you have "showdead" on on your account, so I don't see how it can be crawlable, same for the comment thread under the flagged comment.
Same feeling I got. Anything that can be remotely considered right wing even through the most extreme mental gymnastics, is automatically flagged and/or downvoted.
So unless the author shows some proof of that, I'd ignore their claim. Innocent until proven guilty.
Presuming you visit this site often, doesn’t this indicate to you that their case is perhaps overstated? From what I understand, the activity they’re talking about on HN is just comments, often in a [dead]ed thread, so they’re things one can simply choose not to engage with.
HN is a relatively diverse community; for every example of a hate comment there are dozens of more constructive comments, including those calling out the hater. There’s no special protection given to trash commenters. They’re often banned, sometimes even publicly called out.
Related, these comments caused me to discover Kiwi Farms. If you want to see a place that sounds like what is described in marcan’s letter, check that place out. That is absolutely a trash forum for trash people. Blocking HN traffic isn’t going to protect them from that sort. Indeed, thick skin and the willingness to put down their phone will protect them from that sort.
Every small business who cares about their Google Maps standing responds to bad reviews, disputing their (proof-free) claims. Yes they have no proof but I would still be interested in knowing if dang was ever even made aware of the claims, or if there was some side-dialogue.
That said, maybe it's not the best approach. I phrased it openly to see if the moderation team would prefer to not comment on the story, as an option.
Asahi Linux has been front page here many times, so this felt like a case where a comment from the moderation team (either way) would be appropriate, to me. Feel free to disagree.
edit: There are specific acusations of referer editing at the end of the article.
Firstly, this isn't google maps, HN is a private platform, and they don't have to do jack shit just because some random person said something bad about them. Responding would only give oxigen to the fire the claimant started.
Secondly, in my country due to the law, if you make unproven claims in your reviews on Google Maps or other public spaces, Google has to take the review down at your request and you can also get sued for defamation, so unless you have receipts you gotta be careful what claims you make in public about someone, especially when you call people alt-right.
Like I said, innocent until proven guilty, especially if you're gonna make wild accusations like that.
The boy who cried wolf comes to mind. If you go around calling everyone who disagrees with you "alt-right", that term looses it's meaning and everyone becomes desensitized and won't care anymore even when actual right wing behavior shows up.
HN or other random websites don't even have 0,01% of the clout Google has. It's highly unlikely you could prove in front of a judge that someone being mean to you on HN caused you material damage in order to claim damages.
