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I was being sarcastic not abusive. There is a big difference. Let me also point out that this whole page is political and therefore should not be allowed accord

I was being sarcastic not abusive. There is a big difference. Let me also point out that this whole page is political and therefore should not be allowed according to the guidelines. It can be argued of course that the "solution" presented in the article is novel enough to warrant an exception. But a counter argument is that the solution is just a variation on what we have seen before when cities selectively fail to uphold the law and citizens try other solutions to protect their neighbourhood and families. This is a story we have seen many times before and we will see many more variations of in the future. With the same old predictable comments repeating themselves on HN. So is this whole page really novel enough to not be in violation of the guidelines? I agree with the guidelines but they have no credibility if not enforced consistently.

dang 4y ago
Your comment was abusive because it crossed into personal attack as well as breaking other site guidelines. Plus it's particularly abusive to post the same provocation three times. You shouldn't be copy-pasting comments to begin with, and you were obviously stoking a flamewar in this case. The HN guidelines don't say that nothing political should be allowed - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426. The approach to that on HN has been pretty stable for many years - for more info, see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
- mbrodersen 4y ago
  "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." What in your opinion is evidence of some interesting new phenomenon on this page? I am honestly courious because I don't see it. As I commented above the subject discussed on this page is nothing now.
  - dang 4y ago
    That's quite a different question. I didn't look closely at the article, but I don't recall a discussion of that particular phenomenon ('eco-blocks' or whatever placed by businesses on city streets) on HN before. Some commenters seem to think that if an article is provocative then that justifies whatever they feel like posting to the thread. That's extremely far from the case!
    - mbrodersen 4y ago
      It is true that the petty crime committed in this case is novel (eco-blocks). But the political context and arguments most certainly aren't. I think it is fair to say that without the controversial political context nobody would care about "eco-blocks" or any other petty crimes. For example, let's say that the citizens tomorrow decided to throw paint at the minivans instead. That would be a novelty. But the ensuring political discussion, the real meat of the comments, would pretty much be the same. So yes the petty crime is technically novel. But the real story (NIMBYs and the homelessness problems), the real meat of the discussion, is not novel at all.
      - dang 4y ago
        Those are good points! but at this point we're talking about whether the refs called a particular ball correctly (i.e. whether the mods interpreted the rules correctly in the case of one article). That's a different question than what the rules are, and whether it's ok to break them (it's not). Certainly the refs making a bad call doesn't give anyone a pass to break unrelated rules or go on a rampage. There's even a rule designed specifically to dampen such reactions in such cases: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        mbrodersen 4y ago
        > Certainly the refs making a bad call doesn't give anyone a pass to break unrelated rules or go on a rampage. Agree.

dang 4y ago

Your comment was abusive because it crossed into personal attack as well as breaking other site guidelines. Plus it's particularly abusive to post the same provocation three times. You shouldn't be copy-pasting comments to begin with, and you were obviously stoking a flamewar in this case. The HN guidelines don't say that nothing political should be allowed - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426. The approach to that on HN has been pretty stable for many years - for more info, see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....

mbrodersen 4y ago
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." What in your opinion is evidence of some interesting new phenomenon on this page? I am honestly courious because I don't see it. As I commented above the subject discussed on this page is nothing now.
- dang 4y ago
  That's quite a different question. I didn't look closely at the article, but I don't recall a discussion of that particular phenomenon ('eco-blocks' or whatever placed by businesses on city streets) on HN before. Some commenters seem to think that if an article is provocative then that justifies whatever they feel like posting to the thread. That's extremely far from the case!
  - mbrodersen 4y ago
    It is true that the petty crime committed in this case is novel (eco-blocks). But the political context and arguments most certainly aren't. I think it is fair to say that without the controversial political context nobody would care about "eco-blocks" or any other petty crimes. For example, let's say that the citizens tomorrow decided to throw paint at the minivans instead. That would be a novelty. But the ensuring political discussion, the real meat of the comments, would pretty much be the same. So yes the petty crime is technically novel. But the real story (NIMBYs and the homelessness problems), the real meat of the discussion, is not novel at all.
    - dang 4y ago
      Those are good points! but at this point we're talking about whether the refs called a particular ball correctly (i.e. whether the mods interpreted the rules correctly in the case of one article). That's a different question than what the rules are, and whether it's ok to break them (it's not). Certainly the refs making a bad call doesn't give anyone a pass to break unrelated rules or go on a rampage. There's even a rule designed specifically to dampen such reactions in such cases: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - mbrodersen 4y ago
        > Certainly the refs making a bad call doesn't give anyone a pass to break unrelated rules or go on a rampage. Agree.