互联网与文化newyorker.com
审核 Hacker News 的孤独工作
The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News
2019 — 2022，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇《纽约客》报道聚焦 Hacker News 的审核工作，尤其是版主 dang 和 sctb 如何日复一日维护讨论秩序，以及这份工作孤独、耗神的一面。文章也写到 HN 的社区文化、争议话题带来的压力，以及审核对平台气质的塑造。
为什么经久不衰：它让人看到 HN 在论坛普遍衰落中仍保持可读性的关键——严格而有人味的审核，以及版主承受的隐形代价，讨论平台治理时仍值得一读。
HN 评论精选
文章抓政治争议是抓错重点，HN 的真正魅力在于技术与想法带来的启发。
我喜欢这篇文章，但觉得它错过了 HN 最好的部分。对我来说，HN 像走过邓布利多的办公室——充满神奇、烧脑的装置、想法和奇物。昨天有人评论里贴了我一直想要的 UI 设计库（humaans、undraw.co），我用在了产品演示；作为自学技术的人，我还通过 HN 接触到 SICP、函数式编程和一本刚开始读的数据结构与算法书。Dang 曾把 HN 形容为“镜厅”或“分形树”。作者聚焦 HN 争议性的政治部分，在我看来像去音乐节却只评论餐车：那是体验的一部分，但不是人们来的原因，也不是让它神奇的东西。
mushufasa查看英文原文
I liked this article, though I think it missed the best part of Hacker News. To me, Hacker News can feel like walking through Dumbledore's office -- magical and mind-bending collections of incredible devices, ideas, and oddities. Just yesterday someone posted a comment with links to UI design libraries that I've been subconsciously wishing for in my dreams (humaans, undraw.co), and I used it in a product demo. As a self-taught technologist, HN has exposed me to SICP, functional programming, and just yesterday someone posted a book about Data Structures and Algorithms that I started reading. Dang was quoted as describing HN as a "hall of mirrors" or "fractal tree." The author's focus on the controversial political parts of HN seems to me like going to a music festival and commenting on the food trucks. Yes, it's part of the experience, but that's not why people go and not what makes it magical. Communicating the beauty of unfamiliar technical topics to a lay reader is much harder than politics, but the New Yorker has done well at that elsewhere (I like the Sanjay and Jeff profile). Moderation is an interesting topic in its own right, though, especially in the age of the IRA and meme-warfare.
声称更友善的社区因审核失败；HN 的严格审核反而更能容纳异见。
把 HN 和那些声称要打造包容空间却失败的尝试相比很有意思。我遇到过 2016 年上线、被宣传为“更友善温和的 Reddit”的网站；它一年后就崩溃失败，也远未兑现承诺，部分怪用户社区，但更怪志愿版主和付费员工/管理层的审核极差。我大体同意该网站的原则和政治，却仍常站在它的对立面；而在 HN，我常自认唱反调，却仍被相当宽容地对待。写那段经历时，我特别对比了 HN：一个被互联网批评者嘲讽的地方，反而更能实现“更友善”社区的目标。
dredmorbius查看英文原文
It's interesting to compare HN with attempts which claimed they were striving to create an inclusive space but which failed. I'd encountered one such newly-launched site, heralded as "a kinder, gentler Reddit" in 2016. Not only did the site itself collapse and fail a year later, but it failed, in the extreme, to live up to its promise, in part through the user community (always a confounding factor) but also through exceedingly poor moderation both by volunteer user mods and the site's paid staff and management. I'll note: I was largely in agreement with the site's stated principles and politics, and still found myself very much on the dark side of it. Contrast with HN where I consider myself frequently contrarian and yet reasonably well tolerated. In writing on the experience I called out the contrast with HN specifically. In part: The really striking thing for me is that a bastion of one representation of what Internet critics, erm, criticise, HN, is proving much more effective at accomplishing and embodying the goals which Imzy, a "kinder, gentler" place, has set out to achieve. ... with a longer discussion of the things that seem to work particularly well. See: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/500ysb/the_imzy_experience_well_that_escalated_quickly/ I disagree with dang and sctb on occaision. I am disappointed that there are topics that HN doesn't seem able to discuss (and have called these out). I've been admonished a few times. But on balance, the site works, and rewards time spent on it. And credit must go to dang and sctb. Thanks, guys.
HN 读者对技术伦理议题负有责任，而某些交叉话题被系统性 flag，版主承受情感代价。
这篇文章似乎触及 HN 的本质，赞赏 dang 和 sctb 的人性又不忽视问题。我个人认为它极好展示了 HN 最爱口号之一 Gell-Mann amnesia 的谬误。若说有一条批评最重要，那就是 HN 因其读者群，负有超出“让讨论文明友善”的伦理义务。政治议题显然分裂，把 El Paso 屠杀之类留在首页没问题；但当热点议题与技术交叉，HN 读者处于权力位置，不应总被免于被提醒责任的痛苦。是的，关于歧视性机器学习等的文章常上首页，但在我看来，这类话题远比恰好符合 HN 主流态度的政治观点更容易被 flag 到消失。文章也有力描述了分裂给版主造成的代价：即使我读到同样难看的评论，也不太可能体验那种把社区当孩子、把失败当自己的尖锐情绪。
IfOnlyYouKnew查看英文原文
This article does seem to get at the essence of HN, appreciative of dang and sctb's humanity while not ignoring the problems. Personally, I would actually consider it an excellent demonstration of the fallibility of one of HN's favourite tropes, Gell-Mann amnesia. If there's one critique that I believe is paramount it's that HN has, due to its readership, an ethical obligation that goes beyond making discussions all nice and civil. Political issues are obviously divisive and it's perfectly fine to keep stuff like the El Paso massacre of the front page. But when hot-button issues intersect with technology, the HN readership is in a position of power, and shouldn't routinely be spared the anguish of being reminded of their responsibility. Yes, articles about, for example, discriminatory ML do often make it to the front page. But in my impression, that topic (as well as employment discrimination, culture-wars-adjacent scandals in tech academia etc) are far more likely to be quickly flagged into oblivion than similarly political takes that just happen to be in line with HN's prevailing attitude (e.g. cloudflare-shouldnt-ban-<x>). The article impressively articulates what toll divisiveness takes on the moderators: Even if I read the same ugly comments, I am unlikely to experience the sharpness of emotion that apparently comes with considering the community one's baby, and making it's failures one's own. When such divisiveness is then reflected in the "real world" of mass media, the pressure only increases. But as this article shows, abdicating the responsibility by keeping the topics sterile is similarly suspect, in the sense of fiddling while Rome burns. I believe a willingness to confront the ugly sides of technology with some courage of conviction would eventually be recognised, even if it may occasionally involve a bit of a mess.
HN 是受挫理想主义者的 escape valve，这句概括了社区气质。
dang 后来告诉我，他把工作中的挫败感看作 Hacker News 的 DNA 的一部分。“那种总觉得必须有更好方式构建系统的本能，以及与之连接的渴望，”他说。“如果你在工作中做不到——很少有人能做到——那你至少可以在互联网上梦想、阅读和争论。Hacker News 是许多人工作的反转图像，层层叠叠——受挫理想主义者的 escape valve。”这是我全文最喜欢的一句，很有共鸣。
chrisweekly查看英文原文
> "[dang] later told me that he sees frustration at work as part of the DNA of Hacker News. “The instinct that there simply has to be a better way to build systems, and the yearning to connect with it,” he said. “If you can’t do that at your job, and few can, then you can at least dream and read and argue about it on the Internet. Hacker News is the inverse image of many people’s jobs, overlaid on top of each other—an escape valve for frustrated idealists.” ^ My favorite line in the whole piece. It resonates.
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