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it's mostly about bad faith takes The problem with that style of 'aggro paraphrase' is that it's not easy to distinguish from a bad faith take and people react

by pvg 3y ago

it's mostly about bad faith takes The problem with that style of 'aggro paraphrase' is that it's not easy to distinguish from a bad faith take and people react to it as if it is. Plus they're often right. If you don't like the punctuation-specificity of the convention (I don't) just take it as 'don't do aggro paraphrase' and stop doing aggro paraphrase.

arp242 3y ago
"Aggro paraphrase" is a rather different argument than "you're making up quotes" though, which is only a very slightly nicer way of saying "you're lying". What you're saying is essentially "your post came off as aggressive", or something to that effect. And I agree with that. And if the post I replied to had been an otherwise nice post then sure. But it's not. It's a hugely bitter, contemptuous, and insulting piece. "Don't respond to bad posts with bad posts" as Dan would say and sure, I agree with that too, and I typically don't, but it really wasn't that bad in this context. Let's be real: calling people "narcissistic" for being a bit playful with some layout is not exactly in keeping with the spirit HN's guidelines, is it? I know you're just an innocent bystander here, but ranting and raving and insulting but then insisting on impeccable behaviour from others is one those flaming hyper-toxic behaviours that destroys, well, everything. Actually I'd argue this is at the root of why Twitter is such a dumpster fire because everyone seems to insist on being an asshole while calling out others for ... being an asshole.
- pvg 3y ago
  is a rather different argument than "you're making up quotes" though It doesn't matter, it's that how it's perceived. As to the other thing, just downvote and flag comments you think are bad.
  - arp242 3y ago
    Perceptions are not reality, or necessarily reasonable. And the flags are most likely due to the "Who here is the selfish and narcissistic one here?"-comment, which could indeed have been phrased as less of an accusation (even though it's the same insult/accusation that was used in the post I replied to). I would have flagged it for that. I'm always open to criticism on, well, anything, but if you can't even side-ways acknowledge the flaming rant that I replied to for what it is then clearly our standards of "acceptable behaviour" are so different that we have little common ground. Maybe no one should call anyone a narcissist or things like that? I shouldn't have either as I said, but that is the really the issue here as far as I'm concerned.
    - pvg 3y ago
      Perceptions are not reality They matter just as much, especially on a nerd messageboard which is also not reality. The convention of not-aggro-paraphrasing-with-quotes is not aimed at your one thing, it's a result of long observation of its effects. And as I said, I don't like the weird punctuation prescriptivist part of it either but it's not really about the punctuation. I acknowledged it's an obviously bad comment by suggesting you flag it and downvote it. It didn't really seem worth saying anything more since you pointed out the problem with replying to bad comments with bad comments yourself.
      - arp242 3y ago
        > I acknowledged it's an obviously bad comment by suggesting you flag it and downvote it. Right so – "comments you think are bad" doesn't really sound like an acknowledgement it's an "obviously bad comment" to me, but I accept that's what you intended with it. And I don't think "never quote anything unless it's a literal citation" is reasonable. The problem with "aggro-paraphrasing" is the "aggro", not "paraphrasing". I've paid attention to this since yesterday, and I see tons of people use citation marks for non-literal quotes in all sorts of ways, with no one objecting. Only one person who seems to object, who seems to go off on rather boring pedantics and accusations of bad faith with some regularity. This is just not a widely held view, nor reasonable. They're just trying to make the entire world adjust to a personal pet peeve. Good luck with that. And again, if you want to argue "your post was too aggressive": sure, that's reasonable. But "you didn't sufficiently account for a niche pet peeve": yeah nah, sorry, I can't agree with that.
        pvg 3y ago
        I see tons of people use citation marks for non-literal quotes in all sorts of ways That's why I said it's mostly about the paraphrasing and it makes sense to take it as such. Neither 'other people are doing it' (you didn't really provide an example of what 'it' is in this case) nor 'the other person started it' are all that important anyway. But if they were bad comments, hopefully you downvoted and/or flagged them. adjust to a personal pet peeve. It's certainly not my personal pet peeve. I've argued against it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15892780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15892780 Good luck with that. I mean, that's how the site works already. Your comment got downvoted, flagkilled and you even got a personal moderator scolding, pretty much the maximum penalty an HN comment can get. In general, avoiding as many standard internet battletropes (calling strangers narcissists who need to get overthemselves, aggro paraphrase, 'good luck with that', etc) as one can manage makes for better comments and better writing (on a messageboard, a very low bar to trundle over as it is).

by pvg 3y ago

arp242 3y ago

"Aggro paraphrase" is a rather different argument than "you're making up quotes" though, which is only a very slightly nicer way of saying "you're lying". What you're saying is essentially "your post came off as aggressive", or something to that effect. And I agree with that. And if the post I replied to had been an otherwise nice post then sure. But it's not. It's a hugely bitter, contemptuous, and insulting piece. "Don't respond to bad posts with bad posts" as Dan would say and sure, I agree with that too, and I typically don't, but it really wasn't that bad in this context. Let's be real: calling people "narcissistic" for being a bit playful with some layout is not exactly in keeping with the spirit HN's guidelines, is it? I know you're just an innocent bystander here, but ranting and raving and insulting but then insisting on impeccable behaviour from others is one those flaming hyper-toxic behaviours that destroys, well, everything. Actually I'd argue this is at the root of why Twitter is such a dumpster fire because everyone seems to insist on being an asshole while calling out others for ... being an asshole.

pvg 3y ago
is a rather different argument than "you're making up quotes" though It doesn't matter, it's that how it's perceived. As to the other thing, just downvote and flag comments you think are bad.
- arp242 3y ago
  Perceptions are not reality, or necessarily reasonable. And the flags are most likely due to the "Who here is the selfish and narcissistic one here?"-comment, which could indeed have been phrased as less of an accusation (even though it's the same insult/accusation that was used in the post I replied to). I would have flagged it for that. I'm always open to criticism on, well, anything, but if you can't even side-ways acknowledge the flaming rant that I replied to for what it is then clearly our standards of "acceptable behaviour" are so different that we have little common ground. Maybe no one should call anyone a narcissist or things like that? I shouldn't have either as I said, but that is the really the issue here as far as I'm concerned.
  - pvg 3y ago
    Perceptions are not reality They matter just as much, especially on a nerd messageboard which is also not reality. The convention of not-aggro-paraphrasing-with-quotes is not aimed at your one thing, it's a result of long observation of its effects. And as I said, I don't like the weird punctuation prescriptivist part of it either but it's not really about the punctuation. I acknowledged it's an obviously bad comment by suggesting you flag it and downvote it. It didn't really seem worth saying anything more since you pointed out the problem with replying to bad comments with bad comments yourself.
    - arp242 3y ago
      > I acknowledged it's an obviously bad comment by suggesting you flag it and downvote it. Right so – "comments you think are bad" doesn't really sound like an acknowledgement it's an "obviously bad comment" to me, but I accept that's what you intended with it. And I don't think "never quote anything unless it's a literal citation" is reasonable. The problem with "aggro-paraphrasing" is the "aggro", not "paraphrasing". I've paid attention to this since yesterday, and I see tons of people use citation marks for non-literal quotes in all sorts of ways, with no one objecting. Only one person who seems to object, who seems to go off on rather boring pedantics and accusations of bad faith with some regularity. This is just not a widely held view, nor reasonable. They're just trying to make the entire world adjust to a personal pet peeve. Good luck with that. And again, if you want to argue "your post was too aggressive": sure, that's reasonable. But "you didn't sufficiently account for a niche pet peeve": yeah nah, sorry, I can't agree with that.
      - pvg 3y ago
        I see tons of people use citation marks for non-literal quotes in all sorts of ways That's why I said it's mostly about the paraphrasing and it makes sense to take it as such. Neither 'other people are doing it' (you didn't really provide an example of what 'it' is in this case) nor 'the other person started it' are all that important anyway. But if they were bad comments, hopefully you downvoted and/or flagged them. adjust to a personal pet peeve. It's certainly not my personal pet peeve. I've argued against it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15892780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15892780 Good luck with that. I mean, that's how the site works already. Your comment got downvoted, flagkilled and you even got a personal moderator scolding, pretty much the maximum penalty an HN comment can get. In general, avoiding as many standard internet battletropes (calling strangers narcissists who need to get overthemselves, aggro paraphrase, 'good luck with that', etc) as one can manage makes for better comments and better writing (on a messageboard, a very low bar to trundle over as it is).