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Hey dang. Sorry for wading in, but it is a public conversation thread after all... Personally, I don't find that to be a xenophobic slur. If someone said "nobo

by swombat 11y ago

Hey dang. Sorry for wading in, but it is a public conversation thread after all... Personally, I don't find that to be a xenophobic slur. If someone said "nobody in their right mind wants to live in Switzerland" or said that about the UK (the country I grew up in and the country where I live), I would not feel offended, but ask why they say that and take that merely as a strong expression of opinion. Then I would discuss the opinion rather than the statement. Now, that being said, I don't feel any particularly strong attachment to the institution of countries, any more than I do to religions, various *-isms, or even programming languages! It's a big varied world out there and each of those things have their pros and cons. I do feel strongly attached to the ability for people to debate things and discuss disagreements in a civil manner, particularly when they disagree strongly. I do wonder if we should defend the right of people to be protected from having their nationalistic, religious or other types of beliefs challenged, albeit in a very mildly offensive way... I think the OP statement could have been phrased better but I personally don't see it as a xenophobic insult. To me that would be more something along the lines of "those damn Russians, they bring organised crime wherever they emigrate!" "Russia is not a nice place to live" (an equivalent statement to the OP's) is just a statement of opinion about a place... It is entirely your choice what you do as you are the one with the responsibility as moderator of HN, and I don't know everything that you know, but I thought I'd put my opinion out there, hopefully not in an offensive manner. Please feel free to use or ignore it as you please. Thanks for reading!

song 11y ago
I agree. It's a very different thing to criticize the people compared to criticizing the country. For example, I've lived in China, I have very good Chinese friends but because of the political situation and the past history, I fully understand why a lot of rich Chinese immigrate outside of China when they can or put themselves in situations that would allow them to have an escape route. I believe that Russia's situation is a bit similar, it's not an indictment against the people but it's an indictment against the government and the way the country is run currently.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  Russia's situation is similar and arguably much more severe.
cinquemb 11y ago
As we can all see by this thread, the human biases/incentives that go into being a moderator of a forum can be quite suspect… and automated attempts that aren't transparent in totality from people which such biases (i.e. all of the weights things have on hn and the branching logic that determines who/what gets [dead], despite the likelihood of people gamifying them to some degree) will be equally suspect…
- DanBC 11y ago
  An alternative interpretation is that some people have previously engaged in nationalistic flame-baiting, and mods want to prevent that as much as possible.
  - cinquemb 11y ago
    Well now that we're all a bit off topic, it also seems like some people have lived in Russia for some time and form opinions about a country that some people have felt the need to respond with their opinion. I can see why HN might not want to show such to public viewers to be protective of their image if people have never came across the brand before and spent enough time to get a feel for what goes on here… I'd also love to see the corpus on how HN classifies things as "nationalistic flame-baiting", but I as of now, I suspect it's usually ad-hoc indirect self-referencing ("I saw this user said something like $__non_exact_quote_of_what_some_user_has_said_ [which mostly reflects my personal bias/interpretation that may or may not be consistent over time, that may or may not be shared by others, but to the degree of which, I cannot say because I have no stats to show you]") to other instances where a mod has stepped in and labeled something as such. I think that would be a much powerful citation… but yeah, not my forum, not my rules, HN/YC and their agents/mods are free to be transparent (and to the degree of which is defined as being transparent) as they like.
dang 11y ago
You're missing the context, which is that this user has posted things like "Russia is the stupidest country" in the past. If it had been an isolated statement it would be different, but it was anything but. And HN is obviously not the place for this. (On a silly note, your example of Switzerland is amusing because that's the country comedians use to make bigotry sound absurd, such as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo, or Orson Welles' legendary cuckoo clock rant in the Third Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6TYisX9oA&t=11s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6TYisX9oA&t=11s).
- swombat 11y ago
  I don't envy your position! It's hard to balance those things fairly. Good luck! And thanks for taking on the hard job of keeping the HN discussions civil... :-)
- ScottBurson 11y ago
  At first I agreed with swombat, but on reflection (and after digging up the thread you're referring to) I think you have a point. I think you need to spell it out in more detail, though. I would put it this way to someone like guard-of-terra: It's fine to say that you don't want to live in Russia, and it's fine to explain why. The politics, the institutions, the culture are all fair game. It's also fine to express as an opinion your opinion that a lot of Russians would rather live somewhere else. But attacks on people, even Russians in general, are not okay. So for example, "No one in their right mind would want to live there" says that anyone who likes it there is not in their right mind. That's a personal attack.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    As I've already pointed out, there's a lot of "no one in their right mind" on HN and it is not usually considered an insult.
    - ScottBurson 11y ago
      So you agree that it's sometimes considered an insult? Isn't that bad enough? I like your candor, guard-of-terra, and I think you bring a valuable perspective. I don't want to see you banned. Please try to hear what I'm saying about the way you express yourself.

by swombat 11y ago

song 11y ago

I agree. It's a very different thing to criticize the people compared to criticizing the country. For example, I've lived in China, I have very good Chinese friends but because of the political situation and the past history, I fully understand why a lot of rich Chinese immigrate outside of China when they can or put themselves in situations that would allow them to have an escape route. I believe that Russia's situation is a bit similar, it's not an indictment against the people but it's an indictment against the government and the way the country is run currently.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
Russia's situation is similar and arguably much more severe.

cinquemb 11y ago

As we can all see by this thread, the human biases/incentives that go into being a moderator of a forum can be quite suspect… and automated attempts that aren't transparent in totality from people which such biases (i.e. all of the weights things have on hn and the branching logic that determines who/what gets [dead], despite the likelihood of people gamifying them to some degree) will be equally suspect…

DanBC 11y ago
An alternative interpretation is that some people have previously engaged in nationalistic flame-baiting, and mods want to prevent that as much as possible.
- cinquemb 11y ago
  Well now that we're all a bit off topic, it also seems like some people have lived in Russia for some time and form opinions about a country that some people have felt the need to respond with their opinion. I can see why HN might not want to show such to public viewers to be protective of their image if people have never came across the brand before and spent enough time to get a feel for what goes on here… I'd also love to see the corpus on how HN classifies things as "nationalistic flame-baiting", but I as of now, I suspect it's usually ad-hoc indirect self-referencing ("I saw this user said something like $__non_exact_quote_of_what_some_user_has_said_ [which mostly reflects my personal bias/interpretation that may or may not be consistent over time, that may or may not be shared by others, but to the degree of which, I cannot say because I have no stats to show you]") to other instances where a mod has stepped in and labeled something as such. I think that would be a much powerful citation… but yeah, not my forum, not my rules, HN/YC and their agents/mods are free to be transparent (and to the degree of which is defined as being transparent) as they like.

dang 11y ago

You're missing the context, which is that this user has posted things like "Russia is the stupidest country" in the past. If it had been an isolated statement it would be different, but it was anything but. And HN is obviously not the place for this. (On a silly note, your example of Switzerland is amusing because that's the country comedians use to make bigotry sound absurd, such as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo, or Orson Welles' legendary cuckoo clock rant in the Third Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6TYisX9oA&t=11s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6TYisX9oA&t=11s).

swombat 11y ago
I don't envy your position! It's hard to balance those things fairly. Good luck! And thanks for taking on the hard job of keeping the HN discussions civil... :-)
ScottBurson 11y ago
At first I agreed with swombat, but on reflection (and after digging up the thread you're referring to) I think you have a point. I think you need to spell it out in more detail, though. I would put it this way to someone like guard-of-terra: It's fine to say that you don't want to live in Russia, and it's fine to explain why. The politics, the institutions, the culture are all fair game. It's also fine to express as an opinion your opinion that a lot of Russians would rather live somewhere else. But attacks on people, even Russians in general, are not okay. So for example, "No one in their right mind would want to live there" says that anyone who likes it there is not in their right mind. That's a personal attack.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  As I've already pointed out, there's a lot of "no one in their right mind" on HN and it is not usually considered an insult.
  - ScottBurson 11y ago
    So you agree that it's sometimes considered an insult? Isn't that bad enough? I like your candor, guard-of-terra, and I think you bring a valuable perspective. I don't want to see you banned. Please try to hear what I'm saying about the way you express yourself.