5 ms·

It would be great, wouldn't it? That sounds delightful, and I would be happy to. Just one quick question: Why was my account rate limited solely for commenting

by shawn 8y ago

It would be great, wouldn't it? That sounds delightful, and I would be happy to. Just one quick question: Why was my account rate limited solely for commenting – substantively, on-topic, and in an intellectually gratifying way – about incels? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18012416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18012416 Why was this thread collapsed solely for saying "I only see depressed men on /r/braincels, not really much hatred?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18012771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18012771 I am becoming increasingly concerned that it's impossible to comment on HN in a way that goes against the commonly-accepted viewpoint, even if it's true. And I have decided that if this is something that is truly worth sticking up for, then I should be willing to sacrifice my account to do it. HN used to be a place that I could go to express views that may or may not match reality, and if it didn't, it would simply be pointed out why it was false and that would be that. But now that YC has become Big Business, that is suddenly not good enough. These are not rose-tinted glasses. I remember. I have made repeated emails to hn@ycombinator.com asking about the situation and have been ignored. I understand that the mod team is busy. However, it is difficult to constructively contribute to a community lead by someone who enforces rules in an arbitrary way with no explanation. And to be clear, I'm not above the guidelines and I don't think that I am. But when I put a lot of effort into my writing, and it feels like I have been doing everything I can to stay within the guidelines on the site which I love, then being slapped down and silenced with zero recourse and zero explanation is not quite positive reinforcement. The same thing happened when I tried to ask why it was OK to label Terry and exclude his work from being remembered as good work when he clearly suffered from a debilitating illness. Now, I would be more than happy to throw myself back into my writing and engage as a good citizen. But it's reasonable to ask "Why aren't you allowing people to voice that their hatred for certain groups or certain people might be misplaced?" HN isn't for ideological battle. But it's for comments. And we do occasionally talk about social issues on HN – always with an undertone of mutual respect. I don't feel like I was doing ideological battle in that comment thread. So I am left wondering how seriously to take the guidelines, if the choice between carrot and stick has been narrowed to stick and stick.

dang 8y ago
"Zero explanation" and "emails have been ignored" is misleading. We've given you far and away more explanations and more emails than any other user. We've been more patient with you than nearly anyone else would have been, even while you complain on this site about how badly we treat you and openly flaunt how you troll us with comments like this one. The problem and the solution remain the same as the last N explanations we gave you. At some point, N becomes so large that it is madness to continue. N passed that point that a long time ago. It's time to try something else, so I've banned your accounts. If after 3 months you want to be unbanned, we'll give you another chance to use HN as intended. At a minimum, that means no more off-topic drama, no more meta drama, no more drama about troll topics, no more self-referential rants, and no more tedious tit-for-tats with other users. If in the meantime you post a particularly good and on-topic comment, you can call our attention to it and we'll be happy to vouch for it, if other users haven't done so already.
- shawn 8y ago
  I tried to treat you like a not-dictator and to express my concerns in a reasonable manner. You reacted as a dictator. Banning my accounts does nothing but drive me underground for three months. You don't know all of my accounts, unless you propose to ban all Tor users. Your explanation is always the same: "Your comments are misleading." But they don't seem misleading from my point of view. I seem to be throwing all of my effort into them, and being banned and shunned in response.
  - dang 8y ago
    That's not the explanation; the explanation is what I said above: off-topicness, drama, metaness, troll topics, self-referential rants, and tedious back-and-forths. What I described is really a 3-month probation rather than a ban, during which your comments will default to [dead] but we'll be happy to vouch for the good ones. Since our software doesn't do probations, we have to use the ban system to do this. When you use Hacker News as intended—i.e. when you post out of intellectual curiosity—your contributions range from fine to wonderful. But you're doing way more than this. You post many things that come from a very different place than intellectual curiosity. Those posts have a lot of energy, but they're not interesting in HN's sense of interesting. When you do this, you lower the signal/noise ratio here, often very badly. Other users get sucked in for their own reasons, resulting in large, tedious subthreads that nobody else cares about. That's not what this site is for. Lowering the signal/noise ratio is the reason why we moderate anyone here. It isn't personal. Personally, we admire your cleverness and like you, which is why Scott and I have spent so many hours communicating with you, trying to help you, trying to get you to fix this. Most anyone else would have been banned a long time ago. I'm sure it's true that we don't know all your accounts. And I'm sure you can create all sorts more trouble for us if you want. But for what reason? Doing that is not going to feel any better.

by shawn 8y ago

dang 8y ago

"Zero explanation" and "emails have been ignored" is misleading. We've given you far and away more explanations and more emails than any other user. We've been more patient with you than nearly anyone else would have been, even while you complain on this site about how badly we treat you and openly flaunt how you troll us with comments like this one. The problem and the solution remain the same as the last N explanations we gave you. At some point, N becomes so large that it is madness to continue. N passed that point that a long time ago. It's time to try something else, so I've banned your accounts. If after 3 months you want to be unbanned, we'll give you another chance to use HN as intended. At a minimum, that means no more off-topic drama, no more meta drama, no more drama about troll topics, no more self-referential rants, and no more tedious tit-for-tats with other users. If in the meantime you post a particularly good and on-topic comment, you can call our attention to it and we'll be happy to vouch for it, if other users haven't done so already.

shawn 8y ago
I tried to treat you like a not-dictator and to express my concerns in a reasonable manner. You reacted as a dictator. Banning my accounts does nothing but drive me underground for three months. You don't know all of my accounts, unless you propose to ban all Tor users. Your explanation is always the same: "Your comments are misleading." But they don't seem misleading from my point of view. I seem to be throwing all of my effort into them, and being banned and shunned in response.
- dang 8y ago
  That's not the explanation; the explanation is what I said above: off-topicness, drama, metaness, troll topics, self-referential rants, and tedious back-and-forths. What I described is really a 3-month probation rather than a ban, during which your comments will default to [dead] but we'll be happy to vouch for the good ones. Since our software doesn't do probations, we have to use the ban system to do this. When you use Hacker News as intended—i.e. when you post out of intellectual curiosity—your contributions range from fine to wonderful. But you're doing way more than this. You post many things that come from a very different place than intellectual curiosity. Those posts have a lot of energy, but they're not interesting in HN's sense of interesting. When you do this, you lower the signal/noise ratio here, often very badly. Other users get sucked in for their own reasons, resulting in large, tedious subthreads that nobody else cares about. That's not what this site is for. Lowering the signal/noise ratio is the reason why we moderate anyone here. It isn't personal. Personally, we admire your cleverness and like you, which is why Scott and I have spent so many hours communicating with you, trying to help you, trying to get you to fix this. Most anyone else would have been banned a long time ago. I'm sure it's true that we don't know all your accounts. And I'm sure you can create all sorts more trouble for us if you want. But for what reason? Doing that is not going to feel any better.