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Just trying to be a better HN citizen, so is there something specific I did wrong here that crossed a line or is it just a "know it when I see it" situation? I

by slg 7y ago

Just trying to be a better HN citizen, so is there something specific I did wrong here that crossed a line or is it just a "know it when I see it" situation? I didn't reference anything partisan and was simply relating a recent political event to both the general topic of poor congressional cybersecurity and the specific topic that duxup was talking about regarding securing a site from electronic devices. It was the response to my comment that was sparking a partisan flamewar.

dang 7y ago
I hear you and appreciate your wish to be a good community member! Here's how we look at this. The value of an HN comment is the expected value of its future subthread, i.e. itself plus the sum of the probability distribution of the responses it may receive. In this case the EV of your post was negative: first because it brought in a partisan stunt that was still hot from the news of the moment; second by framing it one-sidedly ("barged into...without authorization...such a problem"); third by linking to a political source that one side is overwhelmingly likely to agree with and the other side to be unimpressed or offended by. You're right that the flamewar was more in the responses to your comment than in your comment itself, but that's true of most flamewars. Flames get hotter as they spread. From a fire prevention (i.e. moderation) point of view, the issue isn't where the fire burned hottest but where it started. By the way, there are some deeper, interesting issues with this 'expected value' model of internet comments. It implies that commenters are in some sense responsible for the behavior of others and not just what they they themselves post. That's weird. And it implies something about needing to predict the future—also weird. Yet it is the model that works by far the best in practice. I feel like this points us all in the direction of learning new things.
- slg 7y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate the thorough explanation. I agree that the "expected value" idea is an interesting one and I see how when viewed through that prism that the language I used and that linked source used can be seen as biased and more likely to incite a more partisan response. Although I am still not sure I agree with the general guideline of not bringing up something like that incident as I believe it was on topic to both the post and the comment I replied to. My comment might have been the one to inspire a flamewar type response, but it wasn't the only comment that mentioned that incident in general. That said, I will try to be more mindful of that in the future.

by slg 7y ago

dang 7y ago

I hear you and appreciate your wish to be a good community member! Here's how we look at this. The value of an HN comment is the expected value of its future subthread, i.e. itself plus the sum of the probability distribution of the responses it may receive. In this case the EV of your post was negative: first because it brought in a partisan stunt that was still hot from the news of the moment; second by framing it one-sidedly ("barged into...without authorization...such a problem"); third by linking to a political source that one side is overwhelmingly likely to agree with and the other side to be unimpressed or offended by. You're right that the flamewar was more in the responses to your comment than in your comment itself, but that's true of most flamewars. Flames get hotter as they spread. From a fire prevention (i.e. moderation) point of view, the issue isn't where the fire burned hottest but where it started. By the way, there are some deeper, interesting issues with this 'expected value' model of internet comments. It implies that commenters are in some sense responsible for the behavior of others and not just what they they themselves post. That's weird. And it implies something about needing to predict the future—also weird. Yet it is the model that works by far the best in practice. I feel like this points us all in the direction of learning new things.

slg 7y ago
Thanks, I appreciate the thorough explanation. I agree that the "expected value" idea is an interesting one and I see how when viewed through that prism that the language I used and that linked source used can be seen as biased and more likely to incite a more partisan response. Although I am still not sure I agree with the general guideline of not bringing up something like that incident as I believe it was on topic to both the post and the comment I replied to. My comment might have been the one to inspire a flamewar type response, but it wasn't the only comment that mentioned that incident in general. That said, I will try to be more mindful of that in the future.