[dang]

We've been applying the rules evenly for years, or at least have put in years' worth of effort to do so. The problem is that no matter how evenly one applies the rules, people with strong ideological passions still feel that we are biased against their side and secretly favor the other side. I think this is because everyone is more likely to notice and place greater weight on the cases that they happen to dislike.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870

If you're aware of accounts using HN primarily for ideological battle who we haven't asked to stop, the likeliest explanation is that we haven't seen them. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. You can help by flagging such posts or, in egregious cases, emailing us at [e-mail].

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[luckylion]

I find the "both extremes are mad at me so I must be doing something right" defense not really useful, as it really doesn't say much about how evenly you apply moderation. You could be a hair's width away from being a fascist, and some full on fascist would complain that you're too left wing, and both a centrist and a leftist would complain that you're too right wing.

I don't want to complain about people doing it (but I have commented on it, and taken the punishment), I'd just prefer the moderation to be "either there's none or we keep our hands off".

I understand that it's not an easy position to be in, as you have to keep people happy, and enforcing the rules sometimes doesn't vibe with everyone, but I do believe that Facebook got that right (one of the few things!): if you say that you can't make sexist comments, you also can't make sexist comments about men. Twitter and Reddit got that wrong, and I believe you've got it wrong as well, as you'll ban someone like the person here, but you wouldn't bane someone who is the opposite.

[dang]

> "both extremes are mad at me so I must be doing something right"

I haven't said that and try to be careful never to imply it. Rather, my point is that these complaints about moderation bias (which come in from all political angles) are so isomorphic that there must be a common mechanism underlying them. (People sometimes interpret this as an argument in favor of centrist politics but that's a misunderstanding. It's an argument about social psychology on the internet.)

> I believe you've got it wrong as well, as you'll ban someone like the person here, but you wouldn't bane someone who is the opposite.

That's quite false—we've banned countless accounts on both sides of that divide—so I think you're kind of making my point here. You've assumed something that isn't true, for reasons that have nothing to do with our actual practice. Moreover the users with opposite politics to yours make exactly the same false assumption, just with one bit flipped.

[luckylion]

I'm sure you've banned others, too. I read with showdead on, and I'm seeing a pretty clear bias in who's banned and who's not. Sure, it may be that right-wingers just can't behave, and I certainly see some of those. But others are perfectly fine comments, and checking their comment list, they write plenty of those, yet they still got banned. The communists don't get banned, and I can't recall seeing an obviously left-wing comment that was reasonable (aka not "you and all other rich people should be shot") and dead by default.

Maybe there's a secret part of HN where they're posting and they're all banned, but I doubt it. Your house, your rules, but it certainly looks like these rules are a bit bendy, and having banned some crazy person with a Bernie quote on his profile makes you believe that you're applying them evenly when you also ban someone like this here, who just comments from a somewhat right-wing position and is rejected by some part of the community because of it.

[dang]

Can you link me to specific examples of accounts that you think should be banned and haven't been? or of accounts that have been banned, which shouldn't be? I'd like to take a look.

I'd also look at links to specific comments (i.e. dead and shouldn't be, or live and shouldn't be). But that's less relevant because we have to evaluate these things at account level, not post level. For example, banned accounts can post good comments (and we hope users will vouch for those - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cvouch, and we unkill them whenever we see them), but it doesn't follow that the account should be unbanned. That depends on the overall behavior of the account.

[flangola7]

I can't imagine how anyone thinks that HN has a left bias, I've seen open transphobia that doesn't so much as get flagged, when doing it on even centrist platforms would earn you a permaban.