Probably labeling a removal of a format (which is somewhat niche anyway) as "killing the open web" was a bit hyperbolic and not entirely warranted in this case.
Imagine that tomorrow, Google announces plans to stop supporting HTML and move everyone to its own version of "CompuServe", delivered only via Google Fiber and accessible only with Google Chrome. What headline would you suggest for that occasion? "Google is killing the open web" has already been used today on an article about upcoming deprecation of XSLT format.
Hard to find these days, but it remindes me of this [0]:
> "- Google had a plan called "Project NERA" to turn the web into a walled garden they called "Not Owned But Operated". A core component of this was the forced logins to the chrome browser you've probably experienced (surprise!)"
To "not own but operate" seems to go into the direction of the parent comment.
Right. If anything, it's the opposite: removing XSLT reduces the
complexity of existing browsers, allowing new ones to catch up faster.
To me it seems that some people just really like using XSLT, and don't
want it gone. Which is fair, but it also has nothing to do with the
web's openness - yes, Google has far too much power, but XSLT isn't
helping.
> Probably labeling a removal of a format (which is somewhat niche anyway) as "killing the open web" was a bit hyperbolic and not entirely warranted in this case.
Incorrect on three counts. That article lists a bunch of useful technologies that were rejected at WHATWG with unconvincing reasons against massive public protests. It wasn't just labeling the removal of a format - that's a misrepresentation. The second is your characterization of calling XSLT niche. The article makes a case for why it is like that why it shouldn't be so. It's niche because it is neglected by the browser devs themselves. It hasn't been updated to the latest standard in a long time and it isn't maintained well enough to avoid serious bugs. And finally the third - "killing the open web" being a hyperbole. I don't even know where to start. There was a joke that web standards are proposed by someone from Google, reviewed and cleared from someone else from Google and finally approved by someone from Google. We saw this in action with WEI (The only reason for its partial rollback being the unusual attention and the massive backlash they faced from the wider tech community and mainstream media - including ours). At this point the public discussion there is just a farce. I don't know how many times this keeps repeating. That article shows many examples of this. Let me add my own recollections of the mockery to the mix - inclusion of EME and the rejection of JPEG-XL (technically not a part of the standard, but it is in a manner of speaking). It doesn't even resemble anything open.
I will be surprised if this comment doesn't receive a ton of negative votes. But there is no point in being a professional and in being here, if I'm unwilling to oppose this in public interest. The general conduct of WHATWG antithetical to public interest and are meant to escape the attention of the non-tech public. And even the voice of the savvy public is ignored repeatedly and contemptuously. It's not difficult to identify the corruptive influences of private commercial interests on these standards - EME and WEI being the tip of the iceberg. And let's not ignore the elephant in the room. It getting harder by the day to use a browser (web engine to be more precise) of your choice. In this context, the removal of XSLT isn't just a unilateral decision (please don't quote Firefox, Safari or Edge. Their interdependence is nothing short of a cabal at this point), its justification is based on problems that they themselves created.
Again expecting to be downvoted, it's hard to miss the patterns - arguments against XSLT that ignore the neglect that lead to it, and the dismissal of public comments (then why discuss it where anyone can read and post? why bill it as open?). The same happened with SMIL, JPEG XL,... It's tense to suggest attempts to drown out the opposition (I know it has a name. But that's enough trigger some), even if there are sufficient reasons to suspect it. But the flagging of that other article is a blatant indicator of that. Nothing in that article is factually false or remotely hyperbolic. Many of us are first hand witnesses of the damages and concerns it raises. The article is a good quality aggregation of the relevant history. Who is so inconvenienced by that? The only reason I can think of is the zeal to censor public interest opinions. Is the hubris in the group issue tracker spreading to public tech fora now? Conduct like this makes me lose hope that the web platform will ever be the harbinger of humanity's progress that it once promised to be. Instead it's turning out to be another slow motion casualty of unbridled greed.
PS: The flag has been cleared by the admins. But their (!admin) intent is unmistakable.
These things land differently with different readers, of course, but "Google is killing the open web" does seem pretty baity to me. The combo of grand-claim and something-to-get-mad-about usually is. It doesn't take too large a set of provoked readers to get a large enough set of provoked commenters to bump a thread into flamewar mode.
Please take this as a point of discussion rather than as an argument. That title is something that I and many others would have come up with on our own without needing any provocation. In fact, the exact same thing has been said numerous times independently all over the net. There are so many instances that justify the assertion that you could make a very long list with the relevant HN stories alone. But that isn't the point of this reply.
The way I see it, any general or sweeping accusation against an entity may be construed as clickbait or too provocative for HN, even if the content backs it up sufficiently. But at what point are you going to draw the line where you consider the accusations to be credible enough to warrant such a scathing crticism? It's not as if these entities are renowned for their ethical conduct or even basic decency regarding the commons. Heated public lash back is often the only avenue they leave us. Case in point, I hope you remember the stand that the HN crowd took against WEI. Make no mistake, such discussions here don't go unnoticed. The talking points here often influence the public discourse, including by mass media. That's why there is such a fierce fight to control the narrative here.
I respect your right to your opinion. But this is essentially a political subject. And there is no getting around the fact that you cannot divorce politics from technology, or from any relevant subject for that matter. If that's considered as flame war, then I guess flame wars are an unavoidable and normal part technical discourse. It isn't personal (and no personal attacks should be involved), but the stakes are high enough for the contestants (often of high monetary nature). Attempts to curb such heated discourse will result in two serious consequences. The first is that you will give one or often both sides (ironically), the impression that HN is a place to amplify certain narratives without a balanced take. Secondly, you'll unintentionally and indirectly influence the outcome outside of HN. From my perspective, that leaves you in an unenviable predicament of such serious decisions.
So I implore you to consider these matters as well while taking such decisions. Especially to ensure that your personal biases don't influence what you consider as click and flame baits. From my personal experience, I know that you're putting in the utmost care, diligence and sincerity in those matters. But it's possible that the pressure to avoid controversies, fights and bad blood might have shifted your Overton window too far into the cautious territory over time. Probably a good yard stick is to see if the flamewar is important enough and whether it avoids personal harm (physical and emotional). I hope you'll consider this opinion when you make similar determination in the future. Regards!
When I go through these points I don't think we're disagreeing much! It seems more of a difference in style. For examples:
HN doesn't lack for criticism of the tech BigCos. If it's true that HN influences the public discourse (which I doubt, but let's assume it does), all that influence was gained by being the same HN with the same bookish* titles and preference to avoid flamewars as we're talking about here.
Yes, many people have the impression that HN is biased, pushing one point of view over another, etc. But people will have that impression regardless. It's in the eye of the beholder, and there are many angry beholders, so we get accused of every bias you can think of. This is baked into the fundamentals of the site.
I don't think moderators' personal tastes are all that intertwined with issues like baity titles. For example, I like Lisp but if someone posted "Lisp crushes its enemies into execrable dust", I'd still edit that title to "Lisp macros provide a high degree of expressiveness" or some representative sentence from the article.
* pg's word about how he wanted the HN frontpage to be
I don't see it as an easy problem for dang and team to solve. HN didn't flag the post, users dogpiled it. I think dang is right that the title smelled baity and for some reason a bunch of users just insta-flagged it without getting into the details. Moderation is hard. Good posts die unread.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken.
Honestly, the guidelines must also include a clause prohibiting those activities. Sometimes the pattern is overwhelming. But it's prohibited to complain about it. Not an ideal situation. Hope you'll give it a serious thought.
Those activities are certainly prohibited. I don't think we don't need a guideline to say that though.
The HN guidelines don't list everything that's prohibited. To publish such a list would be to imply that everything not on the list is ok. That would be a big mistake! It would be carte blanche to the entire internet to find loopholes and wreak havoc with them.
> Sometimes the pattern is overwhelming.
The trouble is that in many cases it feels like such a pattern—and the feeling can be super convincing—yet there turns out to be no evidence for it. Perceptions are awfully unreliable about this.
We ask people not to post about these things in the threads, not to imply that actual astroturfing etc. is at all ok, but because unfounded comments about it vastly outnumber well-founded comments. Worse, they have a way of proliferating and taking over the threads.
Keep in mind that that guideline doesn't say "please don't post and then do nothing". It says "please don't post, but do email us so we can look into it". We do look into it, and on occasions when we find evidence, we act on it. There just needs to be something objective to go on, and in most cases there isn't.
The phenomenon of internet users being far too quick to jump to conclusions about astroturfing, bots, etc., is extremely well established. If there's one phenomenon we've learned about decisively over the years, that's the one. (Well, one of two.)
Companies use the same tactics as some states, bot campaigns, etc. The aim is to suppress, or at least diminish, the voices of opposition.
The flagged post is a perfect example. It contains just a fraction of factual information, but it was enough for bot farms to engage. Manipulators get mad at truth.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44949857
Google is killing the open web, today, 127 comments