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The way your post above was structured served to imply that I'm incapable of writing quality, researched articles on topics beyond those belonging to knowledge

The way your post above was structured served to imply that I'm incapable of writing quality, researched articles on topics beyond those belonging to knowledge and pop culture, which was the component of your post above that I stated did not logically follow. My description of "illogical" was toward your back-handed remark. I'll note that you did not attempt to deny, retract, amend, or correct this interpretation after being presented with it, which leaves me to believe that was your intent all along. In which case: No, that's not acceptable. Personal attacks do not belong on HN, let alone baseless ones.

ahelwer 9y ago
You seem really fixated on the logic here, and I'm feeling bored and unbelievably petty, so let's break it all down. Logical structure of your original post, in your voice: A.P0: If existing editors behave poorly toward new editors, it will drive new editors away. A.P1: Existing editors are behaving poorly toward new editors, based on my anecdotal supporting evidence. A.C: Existing editors are driving away new editors with their poor behaviour. Logical structure of my reply, in my voice: B.P0: Existing editors behave poorly toward newcomers in certain domains such as common knowledge and pop culture. B.P1: Existing editors don't behave poorly toward newcomers in domains such as creation of new technical articles, based on my anecdotal supporting evidence. B.P2: Many HN readers have the capability to write new technical articles. B.C: HN readers will not experience poor behaviour from existing editors if they use their knowledge to write new technical articles. Logical structure of first reply, in your voice: C.P0: It is possible you are implying I am unwilling/incapable of writing quality researched Wikipedia articles. C.P1: If you were not implying C.P0, then your reply does not logically follow (ed. note: probably meant "address" rather than "logically follow") from conclusion A.C. Logical structure of my reply, in my voice: (clarifying restatement of previous) Logical structure of your second reply, in your voice: E.P0: Since you did not explicitly assuage my concerns in C.P0, my concerns are valid. E.P1: If my C.P0 concerns were valid, that constitutes a personal attack. E.P2: Personal attacks are unacceptable on HN. E.C: Your reply to me was unacceptable. Now that we have a nice pseudo-logical representation of our conversation, I hope all ambiguity is cleared up. Anyway, your propositions C.P1 and E.P0 are both incorrect.
- CiPHPerCoder 9y ago
  You're forgetting something: They were hostile to me before I had a chance to contribute. Here's where your logic falls apart: B.P1 is demonstrably false, in at least one occurrence. (i.e. Mine, where the hostility existed irrespective of my writing skills or the value of my potential contributions, or the lack thereof, because they were acting with zero information which shows their tendencies. If you've already established social capital, you're part of their in-group and therefore will not be attacked.) But from the overall tone of the other comments here, and the sheer upvote/downvote ratio of my top-level comment, it's probably not a rare event. I didn't think you overlooked this detail. I misinterpreted your statements as a personal attack based on the fact that I already explicitly made this clear and you appeared to have enough mastery of the English language to possess basic reading comprehension. But clearly I was wrong somewhere. I apologize for giving you too much credit. Hopefully spelling it out here, again, makes it clearer. If not, there's no point continuing this conversation because it's only going to get nasty.

ahelwer 9y ago

You seem really fixated on the logic here, and I'm feeling bored and unbelievably petty, so let's break it all down. Logical structure of your original post, in your voice: A.P0: If existing editors behave poorly toward new editors, it will drive new editors away. A.P1: Existing editors are behaving poorly toward new editors, based on my anecdotal supporting evidence. A.C: Existing editors are driving away new editors with their poor behaviour. Logical structure of my reply, in my voice: B.P0: Existing editors behave poorly toward newcomers in certain domains such as common knowledge and pop culture. B.P1: Existing editors don't behave poorly toward newcomers in domains such as creation of new technical articles, based on my anecdotal supporting evidence. B.P2: Many HN readers have the capability to write new technical articles. B.C: HN readers will not experience poor behaviour from existing editors if they use their knowledge to write new technical articles. Logical structure of first reply, in your voice: C.P0: It is possible you are implying I am unwilling/incapable of writing quality researched Wikipedia articles. C.P1: If you were not implying C.P0, then your reply does not logically follow (ed. note: probably meant "address" rather than "logically follow") from conclusion A.C. Logical structure of my reply, in my voice: (clarifying restatement of previous) Logical structure of your second reply, in your voice: E.P0: Since you did not explicitly assuage my concerns in C.P0, my concerns are valid. E.P1: If my C.P0 concerns were valid, that constitutes a personal attack. E.P2: Personal attacks are unacceptable on HN. E.C: Your reply to me was unacceptable. Now that we have a nice pseudo-logical representation of our conversation, I hope all ambiguity is cleared up. Anyway, your propositions C.P1 and E.P0 are both incorrect.

CiPHPerCoder 9y ago
You're forgetting something: They were hostile to me before I had a chance to contribute. Here's where your logic falls apart: B.P1 is demonstrably false, in at least one occurrence. (i.e. Mine, where the hostility existed irrespective of my writing skills or the value of my potential contributions, or the lack thereof, because they were acting with zero information which shows their tendencies. If you've already established social capital, you're part of their in-group and therefore will not be attacked.) But from the overall tone of the other comments here, and the sheer upvote/downvote ratio of my top-level comment, it's probably not a rare event. I didn't think you overlooked this detail. I misinterpreted your statements as a personal attack based on the fact that I already explicitly made this clear and you appeared to have enough mastery of the English language to possess basic reading comprehension. But clearly I was wrong somewhere. I apologize for giving you too much credit. Hopefully spelling it out here, again, makes it clearer. If not, there's no point continuing this conversation because it's only going to get nasty.