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That is one comment thread, initiated by me. Even the other discussion on the comment-thread about whether or not fanboy is derogatory, is completely unrelated,

by xracy 4y ago

That is one comment thread, initiated by me. Even the other discussion on the comment-thread about whether or not fanboy is derogatory, is completely unrelated, and sticking to the merits of the discussion. And I again believe that fanboy is not derogatory. But I've been downvoted to oblivion on hostile threads before, so I think it's reasonable to pre-defend some of my comments in order to change people's mindset going into the thread. If this were flamebait, people would be flaming on it, and they're not.

dang 4y ago
> If this were flamebait, people would be flaming on it, and they're not. Dropping a lit match in a dry forest is a fire hazard even when the match fizzles out. You have to judge by the statistical risk. Individual cases are too random to draw reliable conclusions from. Edit: I see that I already made that point in my previous reply to you. Sorry for the repetition! But surely it's not hard to understand?
- xracy 4y ago
  I think it's an unreliable standard? Like, everything people say could incite flaming given the right situation. So saying that something could when it doesn't is an arbitrary standard. Also you can't run the statistical risk more than once, so your sample size will always be 1.
  - dang 4y ago
    The general case is quite reliable. If a commenter posts the way you did, the expected value is most certainly a flamewar, and that's obviously the basis on which we have to moderate the site, precisely because we can't predict the specific outcome in any given case. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22expected%20value%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
    - xracy 4y ago
      But... you're moderating after the discussions have happened. You can moderate on the outcome by the point that you flagged my comment. And the outcome is not actually a flamewar. Also, that's why there are humans moderating, not bots, if you wanted to moderate based on a formula, you could just have a bot do this.
      - dang 4y ago
        The random outcome isn't the important thing. If I ride my bike in front of a car and don't get hit, does that mean it was safe to do so? No—it just means I got lucky. We have to moderate for the general case! I'm not sure what else to tell you!

by xracy 4y ago

dang 4y ago

> If this were flamebait, people would be flaming on it, and they're not. Dropping a lit match in a dry forest is a fire hazard even when the match fizzles out. You have to judge by the statistical risk. Individual cases are too random to draw reliable conclusions from. Edit: I see that I already made that point in my previous reply to you. Sorry for the repetition! But surely it's not hard to understand?

xracy 4y ago
I think it's an unreliable standard? Like, everything people say could incite flaming given the right situation. So saying that something could when it doesn't is an arbitrary standard. Also you can't run the statistical risk more than once, so your sample size will always be 1.
- dang 4y ago
  The general case is quite reliable. If a commenter posts the way you did, the expected value is most certainly a flamewar, and that's obviously the basis on which we have to moderate the site, precisely because we can't predict the specific outcome in any given case. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22expected%20value%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
  - xracy 4y ago
    But... you're moderating after the discussions have happened. You can moderate on the outcome by the point that you flagged my comment. And the outcome is not actually a flamewar. Also, that's why there are humans moderating, not bots, if you wanted to moderate based on a formula, you could just have a bot do this.
    - dang 4y ago
      The random outcome isn't the important thing. If I ride my bike in front of a car and don't get hit, does that mean it was safe to do so? No—it just means I got lucky. We have to moderate for the general case! I'm not sure what else to tell you!