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Right, that's what I'm pushing back against. I don't feel that the rules governing the normative HN discourse should be the rules by which we determine the info
by evanlivingston 9y ago
Right, that's what I'm pushing back against. I don't feel that the rules governing the normative HN discourse should be the rules by which we determine the informational content of a comment. Not following the manners of a certain group (acting uncouth) has no bearing on the truthiness of a statement. When the content of a person's comment is evaluated by their adherence to discursive standards alone then groups of people with alternative discursive standards, and by extension their thoughts, are more readily dismissed. Is that what we want to do here?
- dang 9y agoCertainly statements made with "alternative discursive standards" can be just as true. Convert any English sentence to uppercase and it's as true as it was. But from my point of view the issue is the systemic effects that "discursive standards" have on a community as a whole. The HN guidelines mention a bunch of things that we've found, over the years, to be important for that reason. Hacker News is one kind of community among many. Think of it as a place where a certain game is played, with its rule set. If that's classist, then chess is classist because it doesn't allow "alternative gameplay standards" like moving your knight diagonally. To me the important thing is that everybody is welcome who wishes to participate and play by the rules. Playing by the rules isn't always easy (including for me—I often have to edit my comments to make them more civil), but all it takes is a wish to do it, and that's as inclusive as HN can get while still having its particular character. It's fine not to like that character, but in that case the thing to do is find a community you like better, or create one. There's room for many communities and should be more.