4 ms·

I felt like it was okay-ish given he immediately qualified his own, nearby hometown with the same descriptor. I think it changed the effect from discriminatory

I felt like it was okay-ish given he immediately qualified his own, nearby hometown with the same descriptor. I think it changed the effect from discriminatory to almost a term of chagrined endearment which lent weight to his subsequent commentary. Would I have written it myself? Probably not, especially given who recently popularized the term "shithole". But I think as a rhetorical device it did what he wanted it to in his writing.

dang 3y ago
That's nicely put and of course I agree! but the problem is that such subtleties don't survive the statistics of a large forum. Even if 95% of readers get it, the 5% who don't are enough to derail the thread. Even if 95% of that 5% are willing to move on, that leaves 0.25% of readers triggered—more than enough to turn any thread into a flamewar. It's similar to this dynamic that comes up fairly often: User: $group is so $pejorative Mod: Please don't post slurs to HN User: But I'm one of $group It's fine conversation in a cohesive context (e.g. friends over drinks), but that's precisely what a large forum like HN is not. That's why we have to moderate comments by effect, not intent [1], and that's why the burden is on commenters to disambiguate their intent [2]. The cost is a certain blandness [3], but the alternative is the end of HN as an interesting place. [1] 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... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=burden%20disambiguate%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20-corporate%20-title%20bland&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

dang 3y ago

That's nicely put and of course I agree! but the problem is that such subtleties don't survive the statistics of a large forum. Even if 95% of readers get it, the 5% who don't are enough to derail the thread. Even if 95% of that 5% are willing to move on, that leaves 0.25% of readers triggered—more than enough to turn any thread into a flamewar. It's similar to this dynamic that comes up fairly often: User: $group is so $pejorative Mod: Please don't post slurs to HN User: But I'm one of $group It's fine conversation in a cohesive context (e.g. friends over drinks), but that's precisely what a large forum like HN is not. That's why we have to moderate comments by effect, not intent [1], and that's why the burden is on commenters to disambiguate their intent [2]. The cost is a certain blandness [3], but the alternative is the end of HN as an interesting place. [1] 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... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=burden%20disambiguate%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20-corporate%20-title%20bland&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...