2 ms·
Exactly the intention, thank you
by petesergeant 5y ago
Exactly the intention, thank you
- dang 5y agoFlamebait is not about intention, but about the effects a comment can be expected to have (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=troll%20effects%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). In this case the comment consisted of one sentence pointing straight to two classic flamewar topics (religion + vaccines), and a second sentence containing a snarky, reductionist provocation ("traffic signals"). In other words, we had fuel plus flame. The effect such a comment can be expected to have is definitely flamewar. If your intention was to engage in thoughtful conversation, the burden is on you to disambiguate that, since intent doesn't communicate itself. A person's intent is accessible to them, since it's immediately available in their head, but not to anyone else—so it needs to be encoded somehow in the message. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=disambiguate%20burden%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... In this case, the whole thing was probably best to leave alone, though, because nothing good (by HN's definition of good, i.e. gratifying intellectual curiosity) was likely to come of it.