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Would HN be better if personal insults and death threats were allowed, would it improve the exchange of ideas and the expression of opinions?
by PavlovsCat 11y ago
Would HN be better if personal insults and death threats were allowed, would it improve the exchange of ideas and the expression of opinions?
- GauntletWizard 11y agoYes. Your idea of a personal insult is my idea of spirited debate. I've been warned twice in the past few weeks by HN moderators because I've used similes that they've found offensive. Honestly? I find that offensive. They'd better censor their censorship.
- PavlovsCat 11y agoI'm no stranger to insults, I can take what I can dish, but I also think this is true: everybody can argue their point without being personally insulting (some, like me, take getting hellbanned a bunch of times, others just do it straight away), but not everybody can look past the insults and focus on the points made. So a free-for-all this excludes people who simply don't like being insulted while gaining nothing when it comes to the content of the discussion, the arguments. FWIW, I'm not a huge fan of downvotes, and I don't even like things being ranked by upvotes. But the rough spirit of focusing on substance and backing up claims, that I like.
- DasIch 11y agoI think you will find many people disagreeing with you on that. In Germany it's even illegal to insult people because in Germany dignity is considered to be a human right just as much as freedom of speech is.
- GauntletWizard 11y agoClearly, Germany has failed - If people had any dignity, they wouldn't need a government to protect it.