4 ms·

This is just an ad hominem. Address the content/message, not the speaker.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dang 4y ago
I agree with you about ad hominems but unfortunately your account has been using HN primarily for political/ideological battle, and also is arguably breaking the rule against trollish usernames here (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20trollish%20username https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...). I've therefore banned it. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future - they're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you want to do that, we'll happily rename your account to something less trollish. (If you didn't intend your username to be trollish, I apologize, but I'm seeing signs that other people are taking it that way.)
- luckylion 4y ago
  This is pretty lame, given that there's a good amount of users who are basically only commenting to say "capitalism bad, mhkay", yet for some reason that's not "primarily for political/ideological battle". Applying rules evenly makes the rules seem better.
  - dang 4y ago
    We've been applying the rules evenly for years, or at least have put in years' worth of effort to do so. The problem is that no matter how evenly one applies the rules, people with strong ideological passions still feel that we are biased against their side and secretly favor the other side. I think this is because everyone is more likely to notice and place greater weight on the cases that they happen to dislike. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870 If you're aware of accounts using HN primarily for ideological battle who we haven't asked to stop, the likeliest explanation is that we haven't seen them. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. You can help by flagging such posts or, in egregious cases, emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=likeliest%20explanation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
    - luckylion 4y ago
      I find the "both extremes are mad at me so I must be doing something right" defense not really useful, as it really doesn't say much about how evenly you apply moderation. You could be a hair's width away from being a fascist, and some full on fascist would complain that you're too left wing, and both a centrist and a leftist would complain that you're too right wing. I don't want to complain about people doing it (but I have commented on it, and taken the punishment), I'd just prefer the moderation to be "either there's none or we keep our hands off". I understand that it's not an easy position to be in, as you have to keep people happy, and enforcing the rules sometimes doesn't vibe with everyone, but I do believe that Facebook got that right (one of the few things!): if you say that you can't make sexist comments, you also can't make sexist comments about men. Twitter and Reddit got that wrong, and I believe you've got it wrong as well, as you'll ban someone like the person here, but you wouldn't bane someone who is the opposite.
      - dang 4y ago
        > "both extremes are mad at me so I must be doing something right" I haven't said that and try to be careful never to imply it. Rather, my point is that these complaints about moderation bias (which come in from all political angles) are so isomorphic that there must be a common mechanism underlying them. (People sometimes interpret this as an argument in favor of centrist politics but that's a misunderstanding. It's an argument about social psychology on the internet.) > I believe you've got it wrong as well, as you'll ban someone like the person here, but you wouldn't bane someone who is the opposite. That's quite false—we've banned countless accounts on both sides of that divide—so I think you're kind of making my point here. You've assumed something that isn't true, for reasons that have nothing to do with our actual practice. Moreover the users with opposite politics to yours make exactly the same false assumption, just with one bit flipped.
        luckylion 4y ago
        I'm sure you've banned others, too. I read with showdead on, and I'm seeing a pretty clear bias in who's banned and who's not. Sure, it may be that right-wingers just can't behave, and I certainly see some of those. But others are perfectly fine comments, and checking their comment list, they write plenty of those, yet they still got banned. The communists don't get banned, and I can't recall seeing an obviously left-wing comment that was reasonable (aka not "you and all other rich people should be shot") and dead by default. Maybe there's a secret part of HN where they're posting and they're all banned, but I doubt it. Your house, your rules, but it certainly looks like these rules are a bit bendy, and having banned some crazy person with a Bernie quote on his profile makes you believe that you're applying them evenly when you also ban someone like this here, who just comments from a somewhat right-wing position and is rejected by some part of the community because of it.
- FuckYouDan 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 4y ago
    First of all, I'm sorry I didn't know my meme! Second, you've linked to a photo that says something about Netflix, Twitter, Airbnb, Apple, Stripe, Lyft, Google, Salesforce, Facebook, Tesla, eBay, PayPal, and Microsoft. It's not clear to me what that's supposed to have to do with Hacker News moderation. It's not at all true that ideological battles are fine here for one side but not the other, as anyone can see for themselves if they want to look back through the thousands of moderation comments I've posted. You feel that way, not because you're perceiving moderation accurately, but for the same reason that led https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238927 to say "Literally anything left-of-right-of-centre immediately gets flagged (if not outright banned by the mods)".
    - FuckYouDan 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 4y ago
        > 95% of HN is comprised of people that work in the same or similarly biased companies You don't know that and I don't believe it's true. Your example is cherry-picked. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625001 is by the same author on the same topic and spent 12 hours on HN's front page.
        FuckYouDan 4y ago
        [flagged]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dang 4y ago

I agree with you about ad hominems but unfortunately your account has been using HN primarily for political/ideological battle, and also is arguably breaking the rule against trollish usernames here (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20trollish%20username https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...). I've therefore banned it. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future - they're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you want to do that, we'll happily rename your account to something less trollish. (If you didn't intend your username to be trollish, I apologize, but I'm seeing signs that other people are taking it that way.)

luckylion 4y ago
This is pretty lame, given that there's a good amount of users who are basically only commenting to say "capitalism bad, mhkay", yet for some reason that's not "primarily for political/ideological battle". Applying rules evenly makes the rules seem better.
- dang 4y ago
  We've been applying the rules evenly for years, or at least have put in years' worth of effort to do so. The problem is that no matter how evenly one applies the rules, people with strong ideological passions still feel that we are biased against their side and secretly favor the other side. I think this is because everyone is more likely to notice and place greater weight on the cases that they happen to dislike. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870 If you're aware of accounts using HN primarily for ideological battle who we haven't asked to stop, the likeliest explanation is that we haven't seen them. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. You can help by flagging such posts or, in egregious cases, emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=likeliest%20explanation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  - luckylion 4y ago
    I find the "both extremes are mad at me so I must be doing something right" defense not really useful, as it really doesn't say much about how evenly you apply moderation. You could be a hair's width away from being a fascist, and some full on fascist would complain that you're too left wing, and both a centrist and a leftist would complain that you're too right wing. I don't want to complain about people doing it (but I have commented on it, and taken the punishment), I'd just prefer the moderation to be "either there's none or we keep our hands off". I understand that it's not an easy position to be in, as you have to keep people happy, and enforcing the rules sometimes doesn't vibe with everyone, but I do believe that Facebook got that right (one of the few things!): if you say that you can't make sexist comments, you also can't make sexist comments about men. Twitter and Reddit got that wrong, and I believe you've got it wrong as well, as you'll ban someone like the person here, but you wouldn't bane someone who is the opposite.
    - dang 4y ago
      > "both extremes are mad at me so I must be doing something right" I haven't said that and try to be careful never to imply it. Rather, my point is that these complaints about moderation bias (which come in from all political angles) are so isomorphic that there must be a common mechanism underlying them. (People sometimes interpret this as an argument in favor of centrist politics but that's a misunderstanding. It's an argument about social psychology on the internet.) > I believe you've got it wrong as well, as you'll ban someone like the person here, but you wouldn't bane someone who is the opposite. That's quite false—we've banned countless accounts on both sides of that divide—so I think you're kind of making my point here. You've assumed something that isn't true, for reasons that have nothing to do with our actual practice. Moreover the users with opposite politics to yours make exactly the same false assumption, just with one bit flipped.
      - luckylion 4y ago
        I'm sure you've banned others, too. I read with showdead on, and I'm seeing a pretty clear bias in who's banned and who's not. Sure, it may be that right-wingers just can't behave, and I certainly see some of those. But others are perfectly fine comments, and checking their comment list, they write plenty of those, yet they still got banned. The communists don't get banned, and I can't recall seeing an obviously left-wing comment that was reasonable (aka not "you and all other rich people should be shot") and dead by default. Maybe there's a secret part of HN where they're posting and they're all banned, but I doubt it. Your house, your rules, but it certainly looks like these rules are a bit bendy, and having banned some crazy person with a Bernie quote on his profile makes you believe that you're applying them evenly when you also ban someone like this here, who just comments from a somewhat right-wing position and is rejected by some part of the community because of it.
FuckYouDan 4y ago
[flagged]
- dang 4y ago
  First of all, I'm sorry I didn't know my meme! Second, you've linked to a photo that says something about Netflix, Twitter, Airbnb, Apple, Stripe, Lyft, Google, Salesforce, Facebook, Tesla, eBay, PayPal, and Microsoft. It's not clear to me what that's supposed to have to do with Hacker News moderation. It's not at all true that ideological battles are fine here for one side but not the other, as anyone can see for themselves if they want to look back through the thousands of moderation comments I've posted. You feel that way, not because you're perceiving moderation accurately, but for the same reason that led https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238927 to say "Literally anything left-of-right-of-centre immediately gets flagged (if not outright banned by the mods)".
  - FuckYouDan 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 4y ago
      > 95% of HN is comprised of people that work in the same or similarly biased companies You don't know that and I don't believe it's true. Your example is cherry-picked. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625001 is by the same author on the same topic and spent 12 hours on HN's front page.
      - FuckYouDan 4y ago
        [flagged]