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What do you mean by credible? How does anyone on here present proof of credibility about knowledge of a particular event or issue? The comment in question was f
by tempsy 6y ago
What do you mean by credible? How does anyone on here present proof of credibility about knowledge of a particular event or issue? The comment in question was from someone who created a throwaway “exzappos” username and claimed to have worked closely with Hsieh and understood the problems that have now come to light.
It’s impossible for anyone on here to prove their identity or that they aren’t lying about knowledge about something. In that situation anyone can say an anonymous person on the internet is not credible.
Seems like the more appropriate response is to take a comment like that with a grain of salt, but downvoting it to the point of being flagged and deleted made no sense to me either.
- eli 6y agoCorrect, gossipy comments from throwaway accounts do not have any credibility. Being apparently correct in this instance doesn't change that.
- tempsy 6y agono one on here has credibility due to the anonymous nature of this site.
- adamjb 6y agoPeople develop and possess credibility under pseudonyms all the time.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- detaro 6y agoMany people are not anonymous on here. (that said I would have found posting that in bad taste even from someone that could be placed 100% as probably being in the know)
- tempsy 6y agoI don’t think something in bad taste needs to be censored. Just my take. It’s the difference between taking a comment with a grain of salt and saying “no one can read this because we can’t prove it.”
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- GavinMcG 6y agoAn anonymous person on the internet is not credible. That's fine when the things anonymous people are posting here can be verified elsewhere, or are philosophical arguments that can be evaluated on their own merits, for example. It's not fine when it's personal accusations and gossip that can't be verified, but which people take to be true just because it seems exciting.
- tempsy 6y agoI didn’t say it was. I challenge the need to censor comments from some random anonymous poster vs taking the comment with a grain of salt but leaving it up. This pretty much mirrors the national debate we’re having about social media and censorship. I’m not in the group where I think something that can’t be definitively verified should be banned from a website. People should be skeptical, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to read something.
- detaro 6y agoYou can read flagged comments, you just need to opt-in to do so. HN gives you that escape hatch if you don't want others saying that something isn't appropriate for HN get in the way of seeing it.
- tempsy 6y agoOk, but not really my point. I’m voicing my surprise that a forum that is primarily members of the tech community would find it appropriate or necessary to aggressively censor comments that aren’t off topic or outright personal attacks or obvious trolling. I don’t think comments from random individuals that aren’t publishers or people of interest, say a politician, should be censored just because others believe they are saying something that can’t be verified, in bad taste, speculative, or not backed by evidence. Take comments like that with a grain of salt. Don’t upvote it. Let people decide for themselves how much weight to put into a comment like that. To flag it so it can’t be read is to make that decision for others.