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The moderation mechanisms are the very tools that enforce this cult-like mentality.

And threat of suppression, of course.

>>OnlyRe+(OP)
Bit of an awkward moment for a searing indictment, as we'd just turned off flags on the OP. With suppression like that, who needs promotion?

It's a common misconception, but Hacker News really isn't identified with or immersed in Silicon Valley. Those of us moderating it are largely on the margins of SV and always have been, and the community by no means has its center of gravity there. It's globally distributed and on the whole rather anti-SV in orientation.

(The parent was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16182520 but I detached it to contain this offtopicness.)

>>dang+X1
If you're actually asserting HN doesn't censor, and wouldn't censor even more if people actually felt free to express their true opinions here, I question you're intellectual honesty.

>>nevero+M2
People use the word 'censor' to mean so many different things, it's not possible to assert anything coherent in general. We do some of those things, there are others we don't do, and it's not as if any of it is secret. Some people like to ask questions about this stuff and get answers, others prefer to rage against the machine. To each their own.

>>nevero+M2
He literally mentions being on the moderating team so I don't know how you interpret that as him "asserting HN doesn't censor".

>>dang+X1
You turned off flags, but now you’re doing something else yourself. You’re being honest, but not really telling the whole story.

Your thumb is very much on the scale however, where existing community sentiment doesn’t do the job.

Edit: I didn’t intend to be cryptic or confuse you. I mean just that proclaiming you’ve put one of many tools on the shelf for this thread in no way implies what you tried to imply.

>>QAPere+65
Apart from the cloak-and-dagger tone, this either says something obvious—that HN is moderated—or says nothing.

>>dang+X1
Wait, it is? HN seems incredibly Silicon-Valley-culture-centric to me. Compared to the general population:

* Extremely interested in technical topics.

* Extremely interested in startups.

* Extremely interested in big tech company news and behavior.

* Extremely interested in cultural tech industry drama.

* Extremely interested in self-help/business-advice stuff.

* Somewhat interested in explicitly regional stuff like California politics.

* Libertarian+liberal political outlook.

What are the things that you think belong to mainstream Silicon Valley culture which HN is not about?

>>mquand+v7
Lots of people outside SV are interested in those things—many more than are in it, actually. And a topic list doesn't say whether readers identify with or against SV, "tech culture", and so on. The HN users who dislike all of that are just as active in discussing it. More active in fact.

>>QAPere+65
Do you have the evidence to cash the checks your mouth is writing?

Until you do, you're also making a fallacious appeal to conspiracy: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

>>pmarre+ac
why would I need evidence? Dang isn’t contesting the point, just the terminology.

dang 1 hour ago [-]

Apart from the cloak-and-dagger tone, this either says something obvious—that HN is moderated—or says nothing.