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You can't bring up an anecdote as a counterpoint then refuse to explain the anecdote. It's a bit unfair. Edit: someone posted the rules that says we should acc
by xeromal 5y ago
You can't bring up an anecdote as a counterpoint then refuse to explain the anecdote. It's a bit unfair.
Edit: someone posted the rules that says we should accept people's comments in good faith. I'll try to do that. Leaving this comment for posterity.
- borski 5y agoSure they can, if: a) it might get them in legal hot water, or b) it is personal and they don’t want to get into it. You’re not owed anything by anyone here, and they did bring up an example about family court and link to an article about it. :)
- xeromal 5y agoSeems like a lame way to bring up an example to me.
- wizzwizz4 5y agoI disagree, but fair enough. Doesn't mean any of us are entitled to elaboration, though.
- throwaway09223 5y agoImagine how it feels from the perspective of the person constrained by an illegal court order.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chris_wot 5y agoThey absolutely do not have to explain themselves further. They owe you (and us) nothing.
- xeromal 5y agoI just mean from a debat/argument standpoint. How can someone say "No, that's incorrect, but I refuse to elaborate". Why even talk? lol
- Espressosaurus 5y agoThey gave an example with an article. That much is enough to say "this is a thing that happens" without divulging sensitive information.
- borski 5y agoBecause this isn’t a formal debate, and generally we trust in others’ firsthand experiences, especially when they link to a related article, even if it isn’t precisely the story that happened to them. The GP is, in this case, an original source and as per the HN guidelines [1] we assume good faith. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- xeromal 5y agoThanks for linking the rules. I'll accept that.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoThe sentence you conveniently left out leaves out the context of "assume good faith": > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. That does not, in any way, say "assume anecdotes are trustworthy." Nowhere in the rules does it say or even imply this. It is also laughable to suggest the HN community assumes good faith; the comments section has a substantial amount of comments from software engineers thinking they're qualified to rip apart the work of people who are professionals in their fields, usually with high levels of derision. Regardless of what HN rules say, anecdotes are literally the worst way of supporting an argument, subject to no end of observer biases.
- 5y ago
- pyuser583 5y agoWhen someone says “I’m legally prohibited from saying certain things,” you can’t reasonably expect then to detail those things. This is why censorship is so dangerous … especially in a society that presumes freedom of speech. There was a fascinating article (can’t find it) about the recipient of a NSL complaining to their congressman about being censored. Their congressman told them such censorship was impossible under the current law so they shouldn’t worry about it. They wanted to say “yes it’s possible, it’s happened to me.” But that would have been illegal. So it was impossible to convince their congressman to look into it, and therefore impossible to get the law changed.
- salawat 5y agoThey should have followed through and popped open the can on their Congressperson then, rendering it now a political issue. If you want to see the Judiciary rein it in, get a Congressperson involved. The Executive is fudged for, the Legislative can rewrite the entire corpus with due process.