Facebook is absolutely full to the brim with “crap content”. Crap content happens to be what drives engagement, so hosting crap content is a large part of Facebook’s business model.
You’re speaking with a pretty authoritative tone there as though you’re absolutely sure that Facebook has had a change of heart and only wants to host quality content, and there’s no other reason why the pages were removed. Do you have some sort of proof for that, or are you just speculating? If you’re speculating, don’t you think it would be a good idea to match the tone of your post to your true amount of confidence in what you’re saying, so as not to misinform people who might read your comment?
He asked for proof. What part of this statement do you object to? Or is asking you this question not allowed as well because it's not curious enough?
> You’re speaking with a pretty authoritative tone there as though you’re absolutely sure that Facebook has had a change of heart and only wants to host quality content, and there’s no other reason why the pages were removed. Do you have some sort of proof for that, or are you just speculating?
What is objectionable about that post? The OP said "Facebook decided they don't want to be a part of this type of content distribution" as if they were privy to some business decision that was not public knowledge. The reply simply asked them to substantiate it. I do not see any hostility in it.
To me the second paragraph reads like a classic internet cross-examination, barraging someone with questions in order to back them into admitting some misdeed. I can see how it could be read otherwise.
Sorry but I'm with _vertigo on this one. Maybe it could have been slightly more tactfully worded but I would not classify this a 'haranguing' and _vertigo makes a very salient point. There is no shortage of questionable material and businesses that are allowed to be monetized and advertise on Facebook. It seems that this particular company may have become too high profile and is being punished not for violating Facebook's vague terms of service but for the risk of bringing light to it and unwanted scrutiny.
Hilariously, I found myself wanting to downvote dang for criticizing this thoughtful cross examination. And more hilariously, I had upvoted both the parent comment and its grand parent.
It's obviously a judgment call but I don't think the GP comment was super pejorative. It was fulminating a bit (also against the guidelines), but not so much that we would post a moderation scolding. The issue with the comment I replied to is that it crossed into a personal harangue. That tends to degrade discussion much faster—note how with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25634048 the thread is already headed down the drain.
Are you an official representative of HN? Because it appears that the vast majority of your comments are nothing but comments about other people's comments, or directives to follow guidelines.
Frankly, it seems more positive for the community to vote with their feet on comments and posts vs one individual continuously navigating through posts and threads telling people how to behave.
Yes, I'm a moderator here. Sorry about all those scoldings and chidings. I know they're annoying, and if it helps at all, they're even more tedious to write than to read [1]. But unfortunately the system can't regulate itself without feedback from some dedicated component—this is very clear. If we went by upvotes alone, the site would be dominated by indignation and sensationalism [2] and other failure modes for HN.
It's interesting to ask why. I thought about that for years and I think I found an answer. It's because although the community has many smart and well-intentioned people, each is giving only a fragment of their attention to HN (at least I hope they are). Some critical functions, like optimizing the site globally rather than just reacting to specific stories or comments, require someone whose job it is to give full attention to HN [3]. It's not that we're better—except in the sense that one gets better at anything with practice—it's that we play the role of looking out for the community as a whole.
Actually the system has three components: community, moderation, but also software. That's interesting too, because it has always been a property of HN that the core moderators were also the programmers. We rely heavily on software to help manage the portions of the problem that can be handled that way, with the intention of freeing more of our attention for the optimization problem. It only works up to a point, but without it we'd be doomed.
Re: "... each is giving only a fragment of their attention to HN"
Yet even based on this "you" think downvotes are a good idea to keep them, compounding the issue of partial attention with laziness by allowing a single click for a dopamine hit to satisfy someone's half-or-less attention interpretation of something - not required to spend the mental effort to actually qualitatively reply (that you/HN are seeming to strive for) where they'd be forced to pay more attention or their lack of attention will be exposed for fair ridicule via getting responded to; or the qualitative reply will help educate or cause the author being responded to hopefully learn something (that a downvote won't teach them) even if that is that they weren't clear enough with their writing and it's being misinterpreted. I'd implore you to do a multi-month to year trial of no downvotes on comments - I'm sure it'll piss off those who like to think they're right at half-or-less attention and regularly downvote click for that sweet sweet dopamine - and ironically those who normally downvote may actually comment their grievances/complain that there aren't downvotes.
I'm not trying to pick a fight, though I'm really curious how you see these truths I explained above? Having downvotes seems to support a lower quality, less discussion, and less requirement for attention - which seems contrary to what you seem to be working towards?
I read the earlier comment as making aggressive, common-sense inteferences from 'facts' sprinkled through the original posting-- FB ended direct engagement with shared.com a long time ago, the shared.com ads were placed through 3d party contractors (maybe this is less exceptional than it sounds) and the OP says the reason he's sure FB was ok with the whole thing was shared.com's transparency about its business model ... which sounds like an admission it's low quality, that FB initiated communications about quality in the past, and that the OP was aware the shared.com content had implications for FB business standards. Those might be incorrect inferences, but they seem fair from the OP's marketing release.
An alternate hypothesis is that most of the spend referenced by OP is ancient and relevant only for old-time sake. Again. OP didn't say that exactly, but it's a fair thing to question based on how the OP wrote the posting and selected the relevant time period.
If they could, they would eliminate dog/kid photos entirely because they don't make money off that stuff. They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap.
> They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap.
This was the realization that finally tipped me over into getting off Facebook.
I realized that every time I was posting pictures of my life to share with my friends, I was providing the bait that drew them in and forced them to watch ads and other drivel.
It works because many FB users (probably the vast majority) don't fact-check anything. I've lost count of the number of times I did and found it to be untrue.
> If they could, they would eliminate dog/kid photos entirely because they don't make money off that stuff. They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap.
> don’t you think it would be a good idea to match the tone of your post to your true amount of confidence in what you’re saying, so as not to misinform people who might read your comment?
IMO, this should be part of the HN guidelines. HN would certainly be a better place if everyone followed this rule.
I stand by what I posted. I'm allowed to be authoritative as I want in my opinions and what I deem to be a personal analysis of what is a subjective issue. If you aren't in agreement with my assertions, you are free to click the down arrow to the left of the post.
Please don't respond with this sort of indignation even when the feeling is justified. It takes the discussion way off topic and encourages worse from others.
Absolutely. I just mentally add “in my opinion” to everything I read and its liberating; I think way few people do it. More people should see the good wife.
Although I usually ignore responses like in the GP, I like what you wrote here. It implicitly names the unfair rhetorical attack (effectively the kind of strawman that treats you as if you spoke authoritatively, when you were clearly giving your opinion). But yeah, with the right audience you don't have to respond at all, we'll know wassup.
You're allowed to be anything you want. It's a free country. But 2c worth of advice - representing speculative things as high-confidence erodes your credibility. Unless you have some insight or information that everyone else here doesn't, you're really just full of it.
"Facebook decided they don't want to be a part of this type of content distribution" - That is not stated as an implied opinion, it is stated as a fact with absolutely nothing to back it up. Certainly Facebook is just as filled with this kind of low-quality content today as it was yesterday or three months ago. There is just nothing to support your speculation that this is part of some movement by Facebook to improve quality of content.
> representing speculative things as high-confidence erodes your credibility
I wish you were right, but I actually think most of the time the exact opposite is true: appearing highly-confident about speculative things makes someone seem more credible, rather than less.
I thought the down arrow was supposed to be used to indicate that a post is of low quality or that it doesn't conform to guidelines, not to express disagreement; and that disagreement was meant to be expressed by posting arguments
That theory makes sense, though it's unfortunate, IMHO. Personally, I'd prefer for comments to rank higher based on quality (irrespective of which way they lean) than hivemind inclinations. Seek well-roundedness and all that.
If I suspect something is flamebait (ie, responses are not discussion I think belongs on HN as it's redundant/religious/reactive) and the content's value doesn't exceed that flamebait characteristic, I'll downvote.
ie, I downvote things that I feel have an aggregate S/N degradation multiplier.
With all due respect, as someone who has been participating in online communities since the days of FidoNet, I don't think people have really changed. There's just more people, which itself drives up the opportunity for disagreement.
And some of the most disagreeable people on my social media are old farts, too :)
That’s not what the down arrow is for. This is what I’m getting at.
Instead of treating the comment section as a dumping ground for your purely speculative opinions masquerading as authoritative takes, and pushing the burden of nuance onto readers by asking them to downvote if they disagree, I think one should clearly state their opinions in an intellectually honest way. Then there is no need for downvoting if others disagree.
You’re speaking with a pretty authoritative tone there as though you’re absolutely sure that Facebook has had a change of heart and only wants to host quality content, and there’s no other reason why the pages were removed. Do you have some sort of proof for that, or are you just speculating? If you’re speculating, don’t you think it would be a good idea to match the tone of your post to your true amount of confidence in what you’re saying, so as not to misinform people who might read your comment?