alt Hacker NewsTell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator
Hi all,
Tom Howard is going public as HN moderator today. He has been doing HN moderation work for years already and knows the site and its practices inside-out, so the only new thing you'll see is mod comments from Tom showing up in the threads the way mine do. I'm not going anywhere, so you'll have two of us to put up with going forward :)
I've known Tom since he was sctb's and my batchmate back in YC W09. Many of you know him as the kind and thoughtful community member tomhoward (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomhoward). He's still kind and thoughtful, but he's going to post as tomhow from now on (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tomhow), the same way I switched to dang when I went through this rite of passage years ago.
Below is a bit from Tom about himself. Please join me in welcoming him to this new status which he was crazy enough to say yes to!
---
YC and HN have been a huge part of my life for nearly two decades. I read pg's essay How to Start a Startup in 2005 after my friend (and later, co-founder) Fenn found it on Slashdot, and it opened our eyes as to how to go about building products and companies. I first signed up in late 2007, and since then HN has been the place I come to find interesting news and discussions.
Hacker News gave me a window into the big wide world of technology and startups, that had previously seemed so remote and opaque from where I lived (and still live) in Australia. We were lucky enough to be accepted into the W09 batch of YC, and since then HN has been a place where we could share announcements about the startup, but also where I could share the challenges and struggles I experienced in the startup journey and other aspects of life, particularly to do with health and wellbeing.
From the discussions that have happened about these topics I've ended up making enduring friendships with people all over the world, and have been able to learn many things that have improved my life in profound ways. I love HN's ethos - of being a place people come to engage their curiosity. That's what it's always been for me and what I hope I can help it to be for everyone!
--Tom
Comments
Welcome Tom! I want to add to the chorus saying how excellent HN has been for so many years, in large part thanks to the excellent moderation. I dove into forums early on and they have always been one of the favorite and most treasured parts of the internet. It's not an exaggeration to say that HN is one of the best ever. The longevity is commendable, especially in an industry full of fads and flameouts.
Dang and Tom, please keep doing what you're doing.
In the classic tradition of thinking that “dang” is pronounced “dang” and not “Dan G.” I propose that we read “tomhow” as “Tomh Ow”.
Observation:
How lucky are we that our contributions here warrant two fine moderators?
I just read Tom's brief story on how he arrived here and what it means and felt... I don't really have a quick word for it.
I know I am better for having spent time here.
Oh, I got it! A tiny bit spoiled, but in the best of ways. Yeah, that is what I felt.
How lucky we are indeed. :)
Congratulations Tom!
Tom (and Fenn) had rockstar status back when I was involved in university CS+Entrepreneurship clubs in Melbourne around 2009/2010 (mostly led by fine students at UniMelb, but I was helping spread the word at Monash) because they were the first(maybe one of the first?) Aussies to be accepted by YC. They always generously gave their time and advice at these student events, even dropped by the SiliconBeach networking meets to share their experiences and turned out to be exceptionally kind human beings in person. Definitely the right choice for moding this community!
> He has been doing HN moderation work for years already and knows the site and its practices inside-out, so the only new thing you'll see is mod comments from Tom showing up in the threads the way mine do.
I wonder if there are any other secret moderators.
Welcome, Tom! Y'all are making HN a place that I still love to visit every day. I find it awesome how dang et al. not only manage to keep spammers and trolls in check but also actively improve discussions by merging threads and asking people to behave.
That's a great introduction and a great opening from Tom. HN gets a second public moderator is a good sign. You would have to be crazy to agree to this but I guess brave, too!
It's always a site that's had dinner party vibes even tho it's so big. Weird! But the focus on curiosity and healthy is important.
I'm sure the features of HN are already extremely well thought out and precisely balanced, but I guess this is as good a time as any to throw out a feature idea: you know how you can favorite stories and comments? I want to favorite users, too. Maybe privately. Because it's like a bookmark thing where I can come back and see what interesting ones are doing. Just makes sense to internalize it as a list rather than externalize it into a browser bookmark list, I think. But then again, maybe a private list or yet another list would be too much!
Would it be possible to give him a new username for this role like “darn”?
Then we can continue confusing the beginnings of comments that appeal to authority as interjections.
Welcome, Tom! Sometimes I can't believe how good we have it here. Thank you both very much.
Welcome, and thanks for striving to keep hn the bastion of intellectual curiosity that it's been in the ~9 years since I joined. I get tremendous value out of this website, and I'm very grateful for the effort you all are putting in to keep it stable.
Congrats Tom!
Thanks dang and other mods for protecting this sacred corner of the web for so long. You're the guardians of the best no-BS tech news community. It is truly an under-appreciated effort.
Best wishes.
I've (mostly quietly) enjoyed the "vibe" of HN for well over a decade now. It's certainly a major contribution to maintaining enjoyment in the crazy world of tech. Thank you for your contributions to this community which remains so special to an entire industry.
Welcome, Tom! Thanks for supporting this community for so long. Your work is much appreciated!
> He's still kind and thoughtful, but he's going to post as tomhow from now on
I laughed at this phrasing. Welcome tomhow!
Great! Look forward to not noticing anything in particular changing around here. Seriously appreciate this site.
I always wondered how HN manages to do moderation 24/7 around the clock. Australia makes sense.
Welcome Tom! And thanks Dang for tirelessly looking after the community. HN is one of the last few sane places on the internet :)
Welcome!! I was worried for a second that you were the Fallout Tom Howard, lol.
How does such a large famous forum get by with 1 computer and 2 mods. Theres no spam here. No fighting. How odd for the internet in 2025 XD
May we please have another mod based within GMT to round out this follow-the-sun pattern that's slowly rising
I'm not sure if I should say "welcome" or "congrats" so maybe a little of both!
Moderation is a huge part of what makes HN so valuable, so it's good to hear dang is getting some much needed help as this place apparently won't stop growing
Thanks Tom your work is appreciated and I'm sure will be appreciated going forward. There's a whole lot of us here who really value this place, and the many fine minds who share time with us in it, and you're a big part of that.
Thanks for the work you guys do, Dan and Tom, to keep this place a good and intellectually stimulating place for discussion. We appreciate you.
Congrats Tom. I wonder if a particular model could be used as a baseline for these values or if they are already doing that to check first level prior to a human in the loop? I myself have been using AI for this purpose and have found it getting pretty good. I know its not a replacement for thoughtful moderation however, a tailored model for HN would also promote the tradition of HN in terms of having it not just be about who is there and have it more trained on its best practices to promote consistency, possibly as an aid.
Welcome aboard Tom. Thanks to the efforts of dang HN has become an incredible community. I've learned a lot on here and made some great friends.
Welcome Tom! I have been visiting this site (almost) daily for 17.5 years now thanks to the wonderful technical community and diligent behind-the-scenes moderation.
>I'm not going anywhere, so you'll have two of us to put up with going forward :)
I thought that sctb was another one? No longer I guess?
I want to say Welcome but Tom has been on HN for so long.
I want to say Congrats but moderating HN must have been a painful job.
So I guess enjoy, have fun and see you around. :)
Congrats, Tom! I’m glad to hear there’s more than one moderator here so you can share the workload and hopefully relax well on your time off.
Welcome Tom! Thanks for helping to make this the highest signal-to-noise ratio forum in the general technology/business space.
Welcome Tom!
Thanks (in arrears and advance) for all the work here; this is the best forum on the Internet, and we owe much of it to you guys.
This better not have any impacts on my capacity for mischief and shenanigans...
Anywho, welcome tomhow.
Congrats Tom! And thanks Dan! (Yes, I've been around long enough to know the "G" is for your last name! :)
While tomhow is of course welcome, I want to express gratitude to dang for years of quite fair moderation. I've been around multiple communities and he's nothing like those power-tripping libera.chat or reddit moderators.
Congrats and welcome to the new public status! Forgive the non-substantive comment but that's awesome :-)
Welcome Tom! Wishing you good luck from this former Reddit mod -- I know how hard the job can be!
Right on! Thanks and good luck and please keep the ethos / vibe going the way it improbably has for all these years. I've been active online since about 1998, and HN remains unique in my experience. Kudos as always to dang for the huge role he's played in that.
Welcome tom!
I'm long time lurker on hn. Excited to see you as mod.
Congratulations Tom. Great to see the antipodes represented on the HN team :)
Welcome and courage tomhow.
Congrats Tom. Fellow aussie HN lover here. Keep up the good work.
Hi, I'm excited. I'm really wondering if you'll do such an excellent job like dang is doing. This is a really special community, and now it's in your hands as well.
Congratulation Tom! :) Thank you for doing what you do here. Appreciate it.
One thing that I appreciate about dang, and PG before him, is their intellectual honesty and strong sense of ethics.
On the face of it, HN should be terrible. It's a forum owned an investment firm as promotion for their business.
But because HN was started by an individual with real values, and has been operated day-to-day by individuals that followed in his tradition, its been capable of unreasonable greatness and real authenticity.
At this point, HN is sort of the tail that wags the YC dog. There are a great many seed funds but only one HN.
It would be a good thing for the world if HN was spun out as a non-profit and maintained long-term. But in any case, we can all hope that it will at least continue to be stewarded by good people for a while longer.
Good luck and thanks!
Welcome welcome! It's crazy to think of how relatively long-lasting HN's influence on startups and tech has already been.
The question is, who among is willing to be the object of tomhow's first official Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty? ;)
Welcome Tom, thank you and Dan for helping to run one of the best corners of the web for many of us.
Curious that you both made new accounts, is that basically a similar thing to having a "root" user then? So you can't use a normal / previous account or it will ruin it? :)
Unsung heroes deserve praise. Cheers mate.
Welcome! can we call you tang?
Many thanks for the warm welcome, everyone.
It’s been a privilege to help support this community and to work alongside dang, who has been a great friend and mentor for many years. It’s a great responsibility, to keep HN a healthy and thriving community, and I’m continually amazed to see all the ways dang puts thought and energy into it.
One final note is that it was never part of the negotiations that I was expected to know or learn Arc, yet somehow in the onboarding process the HN Arc repo has found its way onto my machine, so it feels like the bait and switch is on…