“like it's some sort of established fact” -> “My understanding”?! a.k.a pure speculation. Some of you AI fans really need to read your posts out loud before posting them.
Isn't that still "acqui-hiring" according to common usage of the term?
Sometimes people use the term to mean that the buyer only wants some/all of the employees and will abandon or shut down the acquired company's product, which presumably isn't the case here.
But more often I see "acqui-hire" used to refer to any acquisition where the expertise of the acquired company are the main reason to the acquisition (rather than, say, an existing revenue stream), and the buyer intends to keep the existing team dynamics.
Acquihiring usually means that the product the team are working on will be ended and the team members will be set to work on other aspects of the existing company.
That is part of the definition given in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, but I think it’s a blurry line when the acquired company is essentially synonymous with a single open source project and the buyer wants the team of experts to continue developing that open source project.
The team is continuing to develop the open source project that was synonymous with the company, but they're explicitly no longer going to try to monetize it. I think that squarely counts as an acquihire according to common usage.
I've seen a few of these seemingly random acquisitions lately, and I congratulate the companies and individuals that are acquired during this gold rush, but it definitely feels awkwardly artificial.
That also means a much larger team and great possibilities for good perf reviews, so basically an excellent outcome in a corporate env. People follow incentives.
I honestly believe that the people involved likely already wanted to move over to React/SPAs for one reason or another, and were mostly just searching for excuses to do so - hence these kind of vague and seemingly disproportional reasons. Mobile over desktop? Whatever app-like means over performance?
Non-technical incentives steering technical decisions is more common than we'd perhaps like to admit.
That's a tough one. Because I think to let this crap stand unopposed is degrading HN and I should either stop using this site (which I've already done for well over a year) or keep speaking out. Not speaking out while continuing to use the site would make me a 'good German' and that's not something I'd be comfortable with.
But between the likes of drysine and rayiner HN is poorer and even though the motto is 'curious conversation' this isn't that and it is making me wonder to what degree 'curious conversation' and 'rage driven engagement clicks' are the same thing but with a nicer name.
Could you point out what exactly you find confusingly one-sided? Happy to update the list of examples if it enhances the quality of my post but when writing it I could only draw on personal experience.
>If you post on /r/conservative you can expect to receive a bunch of bans from unrelated (popular) subs. Doesn't matter what you posted, being associated with that subs "taints" your account enough for some moderators
That's a pretty hilariously one-sided example, given /r/conservative is one of the most comically moderated subs on Reddit. Like, you were so close with that example, but no, it turns out it's all the other subs that are to blame.
/r/conservative is just a renamed The_Donald. It has essentially nothing to do with conservatism, and anything even remotely critical of the dear leader, where critical can be just asking for clarification or correcting a wrong claim, leads to an immediate permanent ban. I actually thought it was performance art and was echoing the famous, and hilarious, North Korea sub. Turns out it's actually sincere.
As to the rest of your list...yeah, I think we'd need to see examples. When people do the "they banned me just for {x}", they often conveniently leave out a lot of not {x} that actually led to the ban. People are remarkably biased in how they tell these tales.
That's a bit rich to say while complaining about the moderation in /r/conservative specifically.
Per the subreddit description it is a place for conservatives to discuss "from a distinctly conservative point of view".
I am getting the feeling that you may in fact not be a conservative. That's fine. You don't need to participate in /r/conservative any more than I need to participate in /r/progressive. It simply does not concern you, and your focus on how a subreddit for conservatives is moderated paints a better picture of why you may have been banned from there.
The problem is default subreddits handing out permabans over political opinions.
To repeat, as you seemed to miss it, the conservative subreddit has little to nothing to do with conservatism the political philosophy. It is an echo chamber for MAGA, and people get banned for actually conservative views if they don't service the agenda/image of Dear Leader.
But ultimately I don't particularly care. I'm not a whiny little baby, and if people need to create such an echo chamber in the service of a child rapist, so be it. That is their prerogative, and all the more power to them. You hilariously replied as if I'm licking my wounds and stomping my feet demanded my voice in that sub, when all I was doing is pointing out that bringing up that extreme example of moderator overreach, but then not using it was a bit comedic.
>The problem is default subreddits handing out permabans over political opinions.
Sounds tough for you. I can see why you are getting banned. But, you know, any sub can ban people for their own policies, even just that they don't like the energy you bring to a sub. There is a bizarre subtext to your comment that is a sort of "/r/conservative is ours, stay away, but also we are entitled to our views in other subs...because, default or something". Pretty telling.
You can see that I am getting banned for no other reason than liberals like yourself disagreeing with my opinions.
I never even participated in /r/conservatives, I am merely pointing out that it is hardly relevant whether /r/conservatives has anything to do with conservatives.
You, and I imagine many other complainers, are obviously disqualified from participating there from the start. That is not a problem.
What is a problem is that many moderators, just like you, seem to think default front page subreddits or country subreddits are a place for liberals only where you should get to ban conservatives.
The entire basis of your argument was that it is for conservatives, so non-conservatives should be banned. And FWIW, I am classically a conservative. An actual conservative, not the cult of personality sort. In this new era suddenly I'm some weird liberal.
>many moderators, just like you
Like me? LOL, I'm not a moderator on Reddit, and can't fathom wasting my time like that. But, eh, people have their own hobbies.
And I've been banned on a number of "liberal" subs like worldnews, because of the aforementioned conservative foundations of my views. And...eh...I sob into my pillow a bit and move on. There are numerous other news subs, and I can make a /r/conservativeworldnews or something and compete for hearts and minds. Whatever.
That is what it says in the subreddit description and name, not my personal opinion of its content.
There are not numerous other mainstream news subs where you would not get banned for conservative opinions. In fact I believe worldnews may be the most conservative leaning one. I know that /r/news is far more left.
You don't think that's a problem with the platform?
Worldnews is only "conservative" in its zealously pro-Israel position. On a number of other topics it is very left-leaning in moderation. On immigration, for instance. As a classic conservative I actually believe in strong borders and that immigrants need to be in service of the citizens of a country and align with its values, which put me at odds with that pro-Israel but also pro-mass migration sub.
Regardless, and to rehash, the foundation of your position was that conservatives have their own place and non-conservatives should be banned on sight to give them their zone. But it isn't a conservative sub, it's a Donald Trump cult subreddit. Which everyone knows at this point -- it certainly isn't a secret -- but again I only brought it up because it was so comedic to mention that sub but not offer as an example of absolutely insane subreddit moderation.
If there is a problem with moderation on reddit, /r/conservative is the perfect example of power tripping moderation and an inability for casual visitors to understand how one-sided the perspective has been curated to be. Again, I only pointed out how hilarious it was to mention that sub, but only to criticize other subs.
>You don't think that's a problem with the platform?
It is a reality on any curated or moderated site (including HN). Every single human on this planet has biases and agendas and conflicts of interest.
Should every sub have a firehose of moderated away comments and or banned users and their reasons? Sure, probably, in the same way that HN has showdead. I mean, there's going to be a lot of heinous stuff among it, but it would make for a fascinating analysis.
EDIT: Every comment I made suddenly got a -4 applied to it, which is kind of funny in the context of this discussion. I am 100% convinced that HN has "super arrow" users, though this has never been disclosed or detailed. But, eh...
Alright, I guess I'll have to take your word for /r/conservative's poor moderation.
But is it a perfect example? I don't know. It's political in nature and one could expect that it's run by MAGA considering the current state of the Republican party and the fact that they banned the Trump subreddit.
I'm more concerned about /r/worldnews and my country subreddit. Reddit should enforce some standards for moderation and make sure those default places aren't run by political activists.
But maybe that's the least of Reddit's problems. Today I have seen multiple posts openly glorifying the Al-Qassam brigades. These posts may well be illegal under various European laws against publicly glorifying terrorism. Many upvotes too, and the posts have been up for hours.
And the funny thing is Redditors think that Twitter/X alone was a terrible platform that needs to be censored.
TheRealDonald got banned because people don't like Trump... so what happens, they take /r/conservative. The name doesn't need to match the topic, thats just what happened, I know its not your real point but you are hooked on Trump.
Now /r/conservative HAS to be strict with modding, if not the entire liberal leaning army of redditors will either have it banned, or taken over. Is that better in your mind? Or are you just upset that it was used as an example?
All your examples are hand-wavey and and follows a stereotypical right-wing grieviences pattern, while still somehow trying to discuss polarisation in a neutral manner. You also suggest in another comment in this thread that Twitter is somehow a better place, suggesting a pretty significant lack of nuance.
I don't expect to see any, but I'd certainly be curious to see what posts that got you banned or admonished so I can form my own opinion on them.
You seem to focus a lot on the examples that I provided (and my opinion of Twitter?) and not so much on the content of my comment or the general topic of the conversation.
Could you motivate why this is relevant and what your counter point would be? I'm genuinely curious!
I'm just continuing the thread of conversation? And also because figuring out biases is basic critical thinking? Especially relevant in this kinda thread.
Furthermore, I'm sick and tired of self-created right-wing narrative of censorship when they're ever so eager to do it to the fullest possible extent they can with their current powers and societal acceptance. And then we're not just talking about random people being mean to you on Twitter, but government power. All while leaning on a narrative of "We're just doing what you did before" that they've created themselves by endless repetition.
I understand, and while I don't fully agree I do agree that having some insight into biases could be relevant since moderation choices are always subjective.
I would prefer not to link my Reddit account to my HN account furthermore it's common for comments to be deleted at a ban so I'm unable to give you the exact comments but happy to provide insight into any (perceived) biased! I have voted D66 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrats_66) during the last elections, I'll let you do your own assessment of their standpoints.
I understand your frustration about the (perceived) narrative of censorship. But I think we can agree that censorship of _viewpoints_ (no matter who it's coming from) is a bad thing.
Unfortunately that seems to be rather rampant on Reddit and is the main point in my original post. As others have pointed out /r/conservative also seems to suffer from bad moderation so this seems more like an issue with Reddit than something coming from a particular political flank.
> I would prefer not to link my Reddit account to my HN account
Understandable, no worries.
> I have voted D66 [..] during the last elections
I've been seeing sentiments like this before but I don't value them high because what matter is what people do and decide when things becomes hot and their professed principles need to be actually proven.
As an anecdote, and yes, I know it's an extreme example, but it's interesting to me and brings the point home: When listening to an audio book (it's on Audible if interested, recommended!) a while back that compiles a bunch of interviews with defendants of the Nuremberg trials, a surprising amount of them suggested, paraphrasing; "I was actually a liberal before the war!" (and also a strange amount of teachers curiously!).
The audio book sounds interesting, could you share the title?
I understand your point about deciding and acting when things become hot but shouldn't we place political vote(s) above comment(s) on social media? Realistically I would hope that the average voter in Europe does not encounter a "hot" situation where his or her morals will be tested as they were during the second world war.
Yet what we vote for influences real world actions, what we say online might influence one or two opinions slightly.
Sure, to some degree it will always be there. But company size and careerist culture - both local to the company and differences between countries - makes it vastly different in presence.
It's truly baffling how people can continue to watch this clown show and still go like "yeah, I think the truth is still somewhere in-between". It's some sort of pathological fence-sitting.
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