Is there any transparency on how "a moderation downweight" works? It sounds like a useful feature, but what does it exactly do, and is there a public log for these types of things.
Sometimes. As is often the case, there is evidence for both (banning/limiting, Chilling Effect, power pressure & scolding, etc), depending on the community.
In your second link, the topics were literally banned from the platform, rendering the question moot in that case.
He's been moderating this site for nearly 8 years, and frequenting it almost daily since it first launched in 2007. We can reasonably expect he's learned a thing or two in that time.
Nothing I said suggested he hasn't learned a thing or two.
My comment was regarding this portion:
> I fear this outcome, so we've always shied away from adding such a system. We do want to be transparent, and we answer whatever questions people ask, but it feels safer to do it ad hoc as questions come up. There's no specific question you can't get an answer to, other than a few special cases like how HN's anti-abuse software works.
> There's an opportunity cost issue too. The vast majority of the community is pretty happy with how we do things—I know that because if they weren't, we'd never hear the end of it, and then we'd say sorry and readjust until they were. I think it makes more sense to do things to keep the bulk of the community happy, or make them happier, than to pour potentially all our resources into placating a small minority—especially since, once you've done this job for a while (say, a week) you know that nothing you do will ever be completely right or please everyone.
Do we deny that peer pressure or herd behavior exists in the real world? Perhaps they are less powerful in forums, but the idea that they do not exist at all seems fairly extraordinary. If every comment a person makes is downvoted, or they are accused of racism or being responsible for widespread manslaughter, and disagreeing with such claims results in discipline for starting a flamewar and nothing for the bully with an overactive imagination, should it be surprising that most people fall in line? What does history tell us about people conforming to societal norms?
Everything is perfect, or not, or somewhere in between. But anyone who claims to have accurate knowledge of how it is because of what they observe, has at least a thing or two still remaining to learn about the nature of reality.
