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Comment by stephenbez | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious why the mods changed the title from "Java Creator James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)" to "Why I Quit Oracle (2010)"

The fact that it is James Gosling saying this instead of a random employee seems important.

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Sadly, this sort of editorializing is quite common here. Anything remotely inflammatory or political in nature will get shot down or toned down summarily.

It's easy to see examples where moderation rubs someone the wrong way or appears to be done poorly. I think effective moderation is more difficult than one would initially think. Do you think this is out of line with the mods oft-repeated goals of promoting constructive discussion and limiting flamewars? Given these goals (setting aside whether you agree with the goals), how would you handle this?

Of course, moderation is difficult. That's why you do as little of it, only when absolutely necessary. In this specific case, I don't see how the omission of the name, which is quite pertinent, makes the discussion more constructive. I don't even see how it could have started a flamewar. As the OP suggests, that information is quite vital to this post.

I agree; in this case I don't see why it was changed. I'm not concerned about it enough to contact the mods in this case, but have in the past and gotten responses, and they lean heavily towards keeping the original title. If you're curious, I suggest emailing them via the contact link in the footer.

Your initial comment goes quite a bit further than addressing only this particular example, however. That's what I was addressing.

Also curious.

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