Thank you to dang and sctb

950 points by sama 7 years ago | 123 comments

Dan and Scott do an incredible amount of work behind the scenes to make Hacker News what it is. I have never met two more thoughtful community stewards. They usually get more hate than thanks, which they deal with cheerfully. This community means a lot to a lot of people.

So today I wanted to say thanks, on behalf of the HN community.

tomcam 7 years ago |

They have both chastised me for "funny" (to me) or intemperate comments. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. But I have never, never felt that they had anything but the interest of the HN community as a whole.

I have never, ever seen any online community moderated better or even remotely close to as well as HN.

I am deeply thankful for HN. It is a surprisingly important part of my life, almost solely because of them.

xoa 7 years ago | |

Well said, about the highest praise I think can be given for HN moderation (or moderation anywhere really) is that, like much of the best IT and security work and such, it's often like air: noticeable mainly through the continued existence of what it supports, or in its rare absences. The evidence of how hard a balance it is to strike even on a project mailing list or IRC channel let alone a bit public site is there in how many communities have collapsed over the years. Yet HN has continued to be, to be I guess different from the norm in terms of the intellectually stimulating things you can see and fascinating people you can come across, agree or not. It doesn't try to be everything or grow farther but do its thing well and it generally succeeds. The guidelines are human [1]. At this scale that continuing is itself pretty amazing and testament to what has to go on behind the scenes. So thank you to the team for that!

1: Perhaps this one more then anything is maybe my favorite nugget:

>"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

This really does make such a different to repeat to myself. And even if the other person is not in fact acting in good faith, it doesn't hurt to try first and then disengage with reason rather then pure emotion.

nolok 7 years ago | |

Generally very much enjoy the moderation here (enough liberty to let side things slide when needed, enough control that it remains of good quality), but in terms of community that is made to produce quality content through efficient moderation, the benevolent dictators of askhistorians are still far ahead of anything else though. The content of that sub would be worth paying a subscription for.

exolymph 7 years ago | | |

/r/AskHistorians is a very particular type of community. It's super interesting and I'm glad it exists, but if no other types of communities existed I would be very sad.

tinkerteller 7 years ago | |

You are entitled to your opinions but your assertions are blantantly wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18514873

yesenadam 7 years ago | | |

Even assuming everything you say is 100% right, that wouldn't make any of those 'assertions' wrong, it seems to me.

cyberferret 7 years ago |

dang has to be one of the most patient and civil mods I've ever come across on an internet forum of any kind. I try and mimic his style on assets that I have mod duties on.

jvns 7 years ago |

as someone whose writing ends up on here from time to time, I really appreciate the HN mods' work to keep discussion on topic & constructive. It's obviously a tough job and every time I've emailed them with a concern they've been very helpful.

dboon 7 years ago | |

And as an aside, I absolutely love your writing.

akulbe 7 years ago | |

Ditto!! Your writing is AMAZING!

boulos 7 years ago |

Yes, thanks! The level of conversation here is unmatched. The set of things Dan and Scott have done to improve upon even the historical baseline are amazing (e.g., resubmit to front page for good submissions that got missed). HN is where I’ve turned for years for honest discussion, and thanks to our moderators I expect it will be for years to come.

sudosteph 7 years ago |

dang really is a great moderator. He's got a good eye for spotting problematic behavior, and a level head for dealing with it. He's set me straight in the past, and I'm glad he did. The way he remains both professional and empathetic, even when dealing with sensitive users and topics, really exudes the best of hacker news ethos. Here's to you, dang!

anotherevan 7 years ago |

One feature on HN that was implemented a while ago now, but often crosses my mind to give thanks for is being able to collapse and expand comment threads. The fact that the site remembers them across page reloads is also a nice and useful touch.

So thanks to those responsible.

peterkelly 7 years ago | |

The implementation is quite interesting :) https://news.ycombinator.com/hn.js

aaaaaaass 7 years ago | |

Lol are you serious? That is a basic requirement of a thread. It’s embarrassing they didn’t have it before.

Insanity 7 years ago |

Their nicks don't ring a bell with me, and I've been here for ~2 years.

Which probably means that what they're doing is a good thing though, not a lot of flame wars going on! (Or alternatively, I just stay away from articles that might cause need for more moderation).

But thanks! Good mods are crucial for a place like this

taneq 7 years ago | |

You've probably seen them post and just not realised they were mods. They don't come in swinging their weight around all HURR DURR I'M A MOD, they tend to just politely remind people to be civil and constructive.

slededit 7 years ago | |

You probably don't have showdead enabled. Unlike other places bans come with an explanation - so I see them fairly often following flagged posts.

classichasclass 7 years ago | | |

Good idea, I should turn that on! Thanks for the suggestion.

Insanity 7 years ago | | |

Oh indeed, that is disabled for me, good point!

quickthrower2 7 years ago | |

There is a decent amount of community moderation through downvotes and flags, plus some algos deciding to kill certain comments (they can be seen with the showdead optuon)

tinkerteller 7 years ago |

While I know how hard these people work, I really cannot support your enthusiasm. The users are often banned at slightest opportunities and they are not even informed what they did wrong or the fact that they just got banned. They would just get dreaded “your are posting too fast” error and all their future posts and comments are automatically de-ranked forever with no recourse or appeal to these higher powers. I felt this was very similar to being placed on no-fly list which we as hacker community deride so much as infallible authoritarianism.

As HN community is more and more becoming group think (watch how this post will be downvoted) and laying these extra layers of super powers punishing anyone ad hock doesn’t help. In few posts when I wrote non-popular opinion very respectfully these folks expressed their displeasure. Mods should NEVER do that.

The sign of such required moderators is indicator of how broken the algorithms driving HN. Instead of fixing these fundamental tech issues, the powers behind HN have doubled down on exercising heavy handed dictatorships. The least they could have done but never have bothered is to at least tell people they punish what they did wrong, how do they fix it and get back in community. The best they could have done would b ego open source HN and have honest discussions about various issues we have as community so more brain power is available to solve these issues. That’s the hacker way.

Update: Great! Group thinkers are already getting busy at casting downvotes.

claudiawerner 7 years ago | |

>They would just get dreaded “your are posting too fast” error and all their future posts and comments are automatically de-ranked forever with no recourse or appeal to these higher powers.

Hear hear. This is by far the worst part of HN. It makes me very annoyed, more than any discussion on this site has, to see that I'm posting too fast... By having a discussion or responding to multiple people. What a horrible restriction.

HN is open source and you can see how they put a flag on your account if they think you argue too much.

yesenadam 7 years ago | |

The users are often banned at slightest opportunities

Do you have any evidence whatever for that?

NicoJuicy 7 years ago |

Thank you Dan and Scott!

I appreciate the understanding, i once added a "post to HN" button to my RSS feed service and i posted too much..

I received a ban and only afterwards it seemed i was posting too much, but explained the situation and was met with understanding. Now, i'm much more considerate.

Thanks for the human moderation and keeping the quality on HN as good as possible.

miles 7 years ago |

I don't always agree with their moderation decisions, but am ever grateful for their fine work in maintaining the best discussion board on the Internet. Deepest thanks to you guys!

codyb 7 years ago |

Hackernews and freenode are the best tech communities I've come across. Don't know where I'd be without the tremendous generosity of the persons in these communities. Currently interviewing with multiple companies from the who's hiring thread.

And to be on topic, I'm not as familiar with sctb, but Dan's comments have always been nothing but constructive. They're never disparaging, they seem primarily to be nudges towards decent behavior. Thank you Dan!

I'll keep an eye out for you Scott ;-).

Cheers all, and happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating today.

nickpsecurity 7 years ago |

Although Ive seen questionable decisions occasionally, over 99% of what Ive seen with showdead on was a tremendous volume of useless or negative comments HN is better of without. That's on top of work to stop things like vote manipulations. dang also intervened to calm my ass down in some scruffles. Agreeing or disagreeing, he always respinded to my questions or gripes in email with thoughtful points.

So, thanks Dan and Scott for all the good work you do keeping the comment sections higher quality than most of the Internet. :)

coldtea 7 years ago |

Dang has done a very good job I must say -- haven't noticed sctb, which means he did a good job as well, not drawing attention to the moderation (which is what happens when it's done badly).

gpvos 7 years ago | |

sctb is a bit newer (since about a year or so?).

JamesBarney 7 years ago | | |

4+ years actually :)

Kinnard 7 years ago |

And for Arc too!

http://arclanguage.org/forum

Thanks Dan + Scott!

DonHopkins 7 years ago |

As a tribute to Dang, whose name you say when you make a mistake, here are some of my favorite Far Side cartoons:

Some Weirdo: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f8/74/40/f8744035e15d69eb8fd4c70de...

Monster Jobs: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/21/81/3e/21813e975f2aa35259246eeca...

Vultures: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e4/d2/f3/e4d2f3b47c3de90e1a084d94a...

Construction Birds at Lunch: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/3b/c5/fd/3bc5fd323e791b6879529e6a5...

Blizard's A-Comin': https://i.pinimg.com/736x/61/f9/bb/61f9bb66cc0e79f06246876ba...

The Creeps: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/1c/5e/5a1c5ef2e9ab19d27970...

Superman In His Later Years: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/86/95/a7/8695a7c1cfffb69bc3b92c980...

Before Paper and Scissors: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a4/cf/ab/a4cfabe6847546e52343d4d15...

Sorry, Buddy: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/49/6b/3a/496b3a234ddeca894887b249e...

Nerd! ...: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c9/08/a0/c908a02a8dfa42db9973f743b...

The Thanksgiving themed one that I googled and googled and googled for but couldn't find, which was taped to my mom's refrigerator, was the disappointed bird standing in front of the open refrigerator, lamenting: "Dang, somebody ate the middle out of the daddy longlegs!"

amingilani 7 years ago |

Thanks guys. And — despite the fact that every time I say the phrase on HN I get downvoted to hell — I'm going to say it: not all heroes wear capes ;)

sudosteph 7 years ago | |

Wait, you're telling me these guys don't have capes yet? I'm sensing some great gift ideas for the YC secret-santa this year.

thatha7777 7 years ago |

Dan and Scott, thank you for thoughtful moderation, patches, and your cheerful goodwill.

resters 7 years ago |

What we don’t see is all the goodwill and interesting discussion that is suppressed by the mods.

And fwiw it’s pretty disgusting that people feel the need to kiss up to them all the time on HN, but it’s like supplicating before anyone with power, it’s done for a reason and it’s an ugly aspect of humanity.

Countless times I’ve seen interesting submissions buried, either by some behind-the-scenes process or via a title change that reverts to the authors boring or misleading title.

There are surely some griefers who need to be policed, but the HN mods are accountable to nobody and there is no public record of their actions which might reveal improprieties or abuse of the trust placed in them by pg and the community.

So I am thankful for any good intentions they may have, but sadly the evidence suggests that at least one of them is a bully who abuses the authoritarian power and lack of accountability.

I’m not arguing that moderation isn’t necessary, just that unaccountable and non-transparent moderation decisions are a recipe for corruption and abuse of power.

Basically, HN is run like Singapore. It’s very tidy but there is an authoritarian dimension that is unsettling. HN thrives when the mods are busy with other things and don’t have time to taze every so called flame war and “fix” every title.

marmshallow 7 years ago |

This is by far my favorite pocket of the internet and much thanks goes to the team that keeps the culture alive and well!

bachmeier 7 years ago |

You generally only hear the complaints, but I think most of us agree that the community is much better because of them.

diegoperini 7 years ago |

Thank you guys! Your nicknames look like some UNIXy command line tools. :P

cgh 7 years ago |

dang has great taste in fiction. I enjoyed our brief discussion of character names in Pynchon and Peake.

Here's why I remember this: no one I know in real life reads fiction. I know plenty of people who read non-fiction (political stuff mostly), but no one in my circle takes the time to just sit back on a rainy Saturday and read something someone else made up. Even my wife is reading Bob Woodward's "Fear", and we aren't even American. So yeah, that little interaction made my day.

clairity 7 years ago | |

yay pynchon! i buy trystero coffee just for the name (you have to be in the know to find it (but it's not that hard)).

cgh 7 years ago | | |

Ha, that is excellent. I once thought that Pierce Inverarity would be a great name for a beer. It would be peak hipster pretentiousness: a brewery whose beers were named for Pynchon characters. Unfortunately, they'd probably all be IPAs.

kregasaurusrex 7 years ago |

Promoting quality discussion and letting people share their experiences in a professional manner makes me a daily reader of HN. Thank you for your work!

chris_st 7 years ago |

Hear hear! Thanks to dang and sctb, and to everyone who keeps this site up and running, AND to the incredibly thoughtful and interesting commenters!

detaro 7 years ago |

Indeed, thank you! I'm always impressed how quick and precise they reply when reached out to via e-mail, too.

bePoliteAlways 7 years ago |

Thanks from my side. I have added only few comments but a regular visitor of this site for years now. A friend introduced me to this forum.

I think moderators are doing an excellent job to keep this forum decent and interesting.

Of course I also thank the people who make this forum and share interesting information.

codetrotter 7 years ago |

Thank you dang and sctb. Your effort is instrumental in keeping HN the cool place that it is :)

mistersquid 7 years ago |

Hear hear. Like so many of us here, I deeply appreciate all they do to keep the hive humming.

oh_sigh 7 years ago |

Wow, I never knew dang was named Dan. I always said it as the word dang in my head

juped 7 years ago |

I think they're good mods, but I don't think this thread is appropriate, nor would I want to have put them in the position of deciding whether to delete it bt making it, as the OP did.

obituary_latte 7 years ago | |

The odds of the mods deleting it seem pretty slim seeing as the author of the post is their boss man.

The thread need not be deleted anyway. Nothing wrong with thanking some of the people that keep the site running smoothly. Especially on a day dedicated to giving thanks.

cbkeller 7 years ago | |

If we want to be technical, I think there's also an argument to be made that moderation of online forms is a hard problem that "good hackers would find interesting" which would arguably satisfy the guideline that

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.

and if there's a broad community sense that moderation is particularly good here, there may be something interesting to be learned from that.

In any event, it's (American) thanksgiving and they're about the best mods I've seen!

saganus 7 years ago | |

The user "sama" (the OP) is Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator.

anonytrary 7 years ago |

waits for low quality comment and dang's response

superasn 7 years ago |

Also thanks for being so super responsive and helpful to emails queries too. I've gotten replies from dang in matter of minutes! Amazing how well they do it.

Gatsky 7 years ago |

Here here, you are both doing a tough job really well.

forapurpose 7 years ago |

As importantly, I think they were doing a good job before and have improved. Not every successful person makes that effort. Great work guys.

toomuchtodo 7 years ago |

Thank you Dan and Scott! Your work on HN is deeply appreciated! You keep us all civil and on topic tirelessly.

DonHopkins 7 years ago |

I can't reply to them and would't want to, but the sputtering Tourettes of accusations from disgruntled shadow banned trolls in this thread is music to my ears -- the moderators are doing a bang-up job, and the system works!

Thank you for "forcing San Fransisco liberal social justice politics down everyone's throat", you "west coast liberal elite echo chamber". Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!!! ;)

rdiddly 7 years ago |

Yep moderation is a thankless job, so today we ah, give thanks, as it were!

atdt 7 years ago |

Thanks, Dan and Scott!

zitterbewegung 7 years ago |

Yea, thanks to everyone who keeps this site rolling !

ptr 7 years ago |

I’d like to express my gratitude as well.

tosh 7 years ago |

kudos! moderation is a lot of work that you typically only notice when it isn't happening. thanks a lot!

mturmon 7 years ago |

Patient, smart, consistent. Thanks.

amasad 7 years ago |

They're awesome -- thank you!

roymurdock 7 years ago |

fantastic job, great mods. thanks for your hard work.

iamwil 7 years ago |

Thank you both.

mxpxrocks10 7 years ago |

same here. thanks guys!

black-tea 7 years ago |

I do not post my thoughts on certain topics any more because I know I'll get banned for it. So you can thank them for your echo chamber.

nolok 7 years ago | |

I have plenty of contrarian opinion on things, such as thinking Tesla is massively overvalued and their autopilot a scam, or my views on apple, etc... And while I may be down voted when posting them never ever have I feared a ban.

Maybe to find the issue you should pay less attention to your opinion and more to how you express it. Disagreeing with people is okay, even on the Internet there isn't always a side that's right and one that's wrong.

hycaria 7 years ago | | |

If you want an example, I have one at hand

black-tea 7 years ago | | |

No, trust me. It doesn't matter what languages I use to express myself, if I post about one specific topic I'll be banned every time. There are probably others too but you'll never know because the moderation is opaque.

choot 7 years ago |

I don't think dang is a good mod. They've removed my ability to downvote or make a new thread.

In fact, they remind me of Stackoverflow community.

I didn't ran into problem with sctb tho, i think he's fine. But dang, she needs tone down her impulse of over moderating everything.

I don't agree with all their methods and opinions. Most threads which hurt business are deranked and removed. Specially, the ones which discuss the dark side of the startups, after all YC has to make sure no one rocks their boat.

And the ones which discuss sexual harrasment or racism in YC Startups or Valley startups, are removed from the first page faster.

Lifestyle business threads are also removed from first page so that no entrepreneur might imagine that something is possible without VC funding.

Pretty, sure these guys get paid for their work. I don't see why should we be thankful afterall it's free market. If they don't like their job, someone else will.

The purpose of this forum is to attract talent from all around the world to silicon valley and mining the bright people who comment there for ideas for next billion dollar startup which YC guys will fund as they got those investors on their side.

Rest of us really don't benefit in material way other than probably a feeling of winning an argument on internet and raising testosterone/dopamine a bit.

monochromatic 7 years ago |

dang has (nicely) called me out a couple of times for making comments that were rude or not productive. I’m glad that they’re trying to keep this place civil.

AnimalMuppet 7 years ago | |

He called me out at least once, too. But the time he did, well, I pretty much deserved it...