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I use this site primarily for seeing aggregated news related to tech, not for ideological battle. When I see hypocrisy, misconceptions, lies, and faulty logic b

I use this site primarily for seeing aggregated news related to tech, not for ideological battle. When I see hypocrisy, misconceptions, lies, and faulty logic being spread and promoted, when some rational and opposing voices are routinely shut out, I sometimes decide to make a comment in an attempt to point out this out. If you consider me doing this "ideological battle", instead of abusing the "flag" button like others on this site do, you are woefully mistaken. Yes, very rarely do I bite back with a kind of venom that others spread. This comment of mine that you've chosen to respond to is in response to another user's comment who grossly misrepresented a group of people as "fucking apeshit" "double standard"-applying "privileged, right-wing" individuals. So I chose to mimic their verbage and point out the hypocrisy in their thinking. Honestly suspecting there might be a chance they catch on. Yet their comment appeared untouched while mine was flagged. And here I am, now being told I've been breaking the guidelines. I've reviewed the guidelines. They're not applied even-handedly. Abusers liberally use the flag mechanism for their own ideological battles, and the lens with which you view comments for moderation is distorted. I've checked your link for your 'primarily' test, and no results show. Like I've stated, I use this site primarily for seeing aggregated news, and sometimes, when I see bullshit, I point it out.

dang 8y ago
Sorry for the broken link! It should be fixed now. I'm talking about your posting history being primarily focused on ideological and political arguments. I get that it feels like you're simply correcting misstatements, confronting hypocrisy, and biting back with the venom that others have already spread. The problem is that the others feel that that is just what they are doing as well. Both sides are sure that the other person started it while they are merely reacting and not behaving nearly as badly. This is the recipe for internet war. Both sides also feel that the mods are failing to punish the other side for flagrantly breaking the rules. From a moderation point of view, though, what it boils down to is that the vast majority of your comments have been doing some sort of political or ideological arguing. That's an abuse of this site, and we ban accounts that do it. There are plenty of other places to do it, and it's deeply destructive of what this site exists for—which is intellectual curiosity, as the guidelines say. Since some amount of political topics is inevitable, and there's nothing wrong with commenting on those occasionally as long as the comments are civil and substantive, we draw the line at whether or not an account is primarily using HN for that purpose. Yours clearly has been, which means that we need you to change how you're using HN if you don't want us to ban it. If you visit the above link (now fixed) you should find lots more explanations of how we approach this and why.
- ignoramceisblis 8y ago
  My use of the site is far more extensive than my posting history. My primary use of this site is for intellectual curiosity, as you say, and as the guidelines permit. Is "Use of HN" limited only to "Posting on HN"? Throughout my entire time with an account on HN, I've made a total of 59 comments, by my enumeration. That includes these comments to you. Throughout the over 3 years I've had an account on this site. That's less than 20 comments per year on average. I've read scores of submissions and comments. Quite literally thousands of them. For submissions alone, I've upvoted 2380. I clearly don't comment on everything I see. You say it's "fine" to "occasionally comment on the politicized topics," that "it's not an abuse of the site to occasionally talk politics." This is what I do. Consequently, I fail to see how you view my account as primarily using HN to impose on others' intellectual curiosity. I want nothing of the kind. I have simply "called out" a small number of instances of behavior that I think should be reevaluated, some instances that would impose on others' intellectual curiosity. Indeed, some patterns of behavior that others and myself truly believe are greatly detrimental to our society. And while my words may sometimes be firm, I do know others have gained value from them. Even looking to the most recent thread of comments that I participated in, a discussion in which I flat out told an individual "You're being hypocritical." (amongst other statements), I received feedback--through honest, civil, unmoderated discussion--from that individual him/herself that, yes, indeed they were being hypocritical. The only pleasure I get from discussions like that is that we've both been able to freely speak our minds, and that our intellectual curiosity is not constrained so that we cannot learn from each other, that we both come out greater at the end of it. I don't presume to know how others feel, especially when they haven't expressed a reply, or "flagged" me. Which is also why I'm surprised at being told that what I've done and have been doing is "deeply destructive," even though this is the first I'm hearing of it. Out of the few comments I've made over the years, currently 31 have a net positive "karma," with at least one other individual upvoting it, 18 have neutral karma (1 point), and 10 have net negative karma. I don't view discussions as a "war" with "sides." I seriously view discussions as an opportunity to share thoughts that I believe are worth sharing with someone, and, if they have something else to say, to learn something in the process. Occasionally I take that opportunity.
  - 8y ago

dang 8y ago

Sorry for the broken link! It should be fixed now. I'm talking about your posting history being primarily focused on ideological and political arguments. I get that it feels like you're simply correcting misstatements, confronting hypocrisy, and biting back with the venom that others have already spread. The problem is that the others feel that that is just what they are doing as well. Both sides are sure that the other person started it while they are merely reacting and not behaving nearly as badly. This is the recipe for internet war. Both sides also feel that the mods are failing to punish the other side for flagrantly breaking the rules. From a moderation point of view, though, what it boils down to is that the vast majority of your comments have been doing some sort of political or ideological arguing. That's an abuse of this site, and we ban accounts that do it. There are plenty of other places to do it, and it's deeply destructive of what this site exists for—which is intellectual curiosity, as the guidelines say. Since some amount of political topics is inevitable, and there's nothing wrong with commenting on those occasionally as long as the comments are civil and substantive, we draw the line at whether or not an account is primarily using HN for that purpose. Yours clearly has been, which means that we need you to change how you're using HN if you don't want us to ban it. If you visit the above link (now fixed) you should find lots more explanations of how we approach this and why.

ignoramceisblis 8y ago
My use of the site is far more extensive than my posting history. My primary use of this site is for intellectual curiosity, as you say, and as the guidelines permit. Is "Use of HN" limited only to "Posting on HN"? Throughout my entire time with an account on HN, I've made a total of 59 comments, by my enumeration. That includes these comments to you. Throughout the over 3 years I've had an account on this site. That's less than 20 comments per year on average. I've read scores of submissions and comments. Quite literally thousands of them. For submissions alone, I've upvoted 2380. I clearly don't comment on everything I see. You say it's "fine" to "occasionally comment on the politicized topics," that "it's not an abuse of the site to occasionally talk politics." This is what I do. Consequently, I fail to see how you view my account as primarily using HN to impose on others' intellectual curiosity. I want nothing of the kind. I have simply "called out" a small number of instances of behavior that I think should be reevaluated, some instances that would impose on others' intellectual curiosity. Indeed, some patterns of behavior that others and myself truly believe are greatly detrimental to our society. And while my words may sometimes be firm, I do know others have gained value from them. Even looking to the most recent thread of comments that I participated in, a discussion in which I flat out told an individual "You're being hypocritical." (amongst other statements), I received feedback--through honest, civil, unmoderated discussion--from that individual him/herself that, yes, indeed they were being hypocritical. The only pleasure I get from discussions like that is that we've both been able to freely speak our minds, and that our intellectual curiosity is not constrained so that we cannot learn from each other, that we both come out greater at the end of it. I don't presume to know how others feel, especially when they haven't expressed a reply, or "flagged" me. Which is also why I'm surprised at being told that what I've done and have been doing is "deeply destructive," even though this is the first I'm hearing of it. Out of the few comments I've made over the years, currently 31 have a net positive "karma," with at least one other individual upvoting it, 18 have neutral karma (1 point), and 10 have net negative karma. I don't view discussions as a "war" with "sides." I seriously view discussions as an opportunity to share thoughts that I believe are worth sharing with someone, and, if they have something else to say, to learn something in the process. Occasionally I take that opportunity.
- 8y ago