6 ms·

You're a good poster, but you are hurting your cause by taking this approach. Take the advice of others and email Dan (hn@ycombinator.com) and make the case fo

by nkurz 3y ago

You're a good poster, but you are hurting your cause by taking this approach. Take the advice of others and email Dan (hn@ycombinator.com) and make the case for why you think he should protect this post from flags. He'll probably be talked into it. For better or worse, that's the way the system works here. As to why it was flagged in the first place, it's hard to say. The easy answer to reach for is to assume that people who disagree with the conclusion want to suppress discussion. I think this is sometimes true, but I'm not sure about this particular case. It could also be that people think it's inappropriate HN for some other reason. Personally, I think our flagging rules are increasingly being a problem, and we should change so that small minorities can't prevent discussion that the majority want so have. But this isn't the case yet, so for now you are better off with direct appeals to Dan. Good luck!

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
Hey, thanks for the comment in the other thread, it's blocked so I can't reply there. You're right about getting in touch with dang and I've done this before. This time I thought I'd try to get the community to react. Dang is one guy, there are things we should be able to deal with on our own, like adults, right? I figured if it gets so bad that he or someone else notices then OK. As it happened, I saw the original thread get unflagged two or three times and then re-flagged. It's now flagged again. I think it was users who vouched for it, then it was dogpiled on again. I am unsure if this means the consensus is that that kind of discussion should stay flagged, or it was just a reaction to the subject. There were a couple of inflammatory comments in there and obviously there's people on HN chomping at the bit to fight the good old internet wars all over again. Still no clear way to have a civilised discussion around this kind of subject I guess.
- kazinator 3y ago
  > Still no clear way to have a civilised discussion around this kind of subject I guess. You don't seem to understand that civilized public discussion begins with identifying a forum where the material is topical; that is part of the civility. Not only being civil in tone and choice of words. An issue being important to everyone doesn't overrule topicality. Look, here you are, under a story about the origin of "pencil lead", going on about something entirely different, using the commenting system for private messaging. If this were Usenet, you'd be plonked into my killfile.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    Suppose there is a violent conflict going in in which innocent people are killed. (Oh look, I can pick from a number of them.) I feel strongly about it! I'm also interested in stamp collecting; let's log in to a forum about stamp collecting where I like to hang out and, and post about the conflict. What, my posts are being deleted? God, I hate other stamp collectors; all they care about is stamp collecting and not tens of thousands of people dying! I really need a different hobby; everyone in stamp collecting is so hostile! Could it actually be that the forum mods support the Murderous Evil Side in the conflict? Yeah, that must be it. It's like the dozens of excellent posts I made in the past about stamp collecting suddenly don't matter, you know? You're only as good as your last post in this goddamned forum, and if it wasn't about stamp collecting, you're garbage.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
      As I pointed out in another comment the HN guidelines say: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. I find it interesting that I'm paid less than my male colleagues for the same amount of work (I am). You're welcome to argue I'm not a good hacker. >> Look, here you are, under a story about the origin of "pencil lead", going on about something entirely different, using the commenting system for private messaging. Yep, and here you are ranting that I violated the rule that the commenting system can't be used for private messaging; a rule that you invented on the spot just so you could rant at me. Btw, I do consider this thing we're having right now "civilised debate". One can argue robustly, speak frankly as you just did, and still be civilised. But one needs to be an adult to handle that.
      - kazinator 3y ago
        What that means is topics that hackers in particular would find interesting compared to non-hackers. If 90% of the hackers find something interesting, but 90% non-hackers also find it interesting, then it's not a hackerly topic. I.e. "... that good hackers (in particular, in contrast to the general population) would find interesting". That's the non-strawman interpretation. I'm positive I didn't just invent the idea that public forums are not for private messaging, let alone invent it today. In any case, that usually runs afoul of basic topicality. If you have to grasp at strawman, literal interpretations of the written guidelines to justify your behavior, some people who don't take those interpretations will probably find that behavior against the guidelines. I'm only articulating some possible reasons why your submission might be being flagged. (What it means for me to be wrong here is that, no those are not the reasons; it's something else.) In my opinion, possibly wrong, to avoid being flagged under a crowdsourced moderation model, your interpretation of the guidelines has to be similar to that of the crowd. The crowd is not going to take a literal, strawman interpretation of the rules. Maybe some of the crowd will but not all of it, and only a small fraction of the crowd is needed to flag you. If you're straining at the boundaries of the guidelines, the odds are heavily stacked against you.
- dang 3y ago
  I haven't had a chance to look at this thread - someone emailed about it a minute ago. I'll take a look later. In the meantime I've moved this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39867290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39867290 to the one it was intended to reply to.
- pvg 3y ago
  there are things we should be able to deal with on our own, like adults, right? I figured if it gets so bad that he or someone else notices then OK. Mass posting the same thing over and over to "get attention" is not the most adultlike of behaviours, at least in theory. You can just email and wait for a response, they're usually pretty quick and even if not, like with most regular HN posts, there wasn't any obvious urgency to yours. Beside the meta noise, tantrumposting doesn't accomplish anything emailing wouldn't and whatever it can accomplish would be no different than what emailing would, just much slower. It ends up working against your interest, beside annoying everyone else.

by nkurz 3y ago

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago

Hey, thanks for the comment in the other thread, it's blocked so I can't reply there. You're right about getting in touch with dang and I've done this before. This time I thought I'd try to get the community to react. Dang is one guy, there are things we should be able to deal with on our own, like adults, right? I figured if it gets so bad that he or someone else notices then OK. As it happened, I saw the original thread get unflagged two or three times and then re-flagged. It's now flagged again. I think it was users who vouched for it, then it was dogpiled on again. I am unsure if this means the consensus is that that kind of discussion should stay flagged, or it was just a reaction to the subject. There were a couple of inflammatory comments in there and obviously there's people on HN chomping at the bit to fight the good old internet wars all over again. Still no clear way to have a civilised discussion around this kind of subject I guess.

kazinator 3y ago
> Still no clear way to have a civilised discussion around this kind of subject I guess. You don't seem to understand that civilized public discussion begins with identifying a forum where the material is topical; that is part of the civility. Not only being civil in tone and choice of words. An issue being important to everyone doesn't overrule topicality. Look, here you are, under a story about the origin of "pencil lead", going on about something entirely different, using the commenting system for private messaging. If this were Usenet, you'd be plonked into my killfile.
- kazinator 3y ago
  Suppose there is a violent conflict going in in which innocent people are killed. (Oh look, I can pick from a number of them.) I feel strongly about it! I'm also interested in stamp collecting; let's log in to a forum about stamp collecting where I like to hang out and, and post about the conflict. What, my posts are being deleted? God, I hate other stamp collectors; all they care about is stamp collecting and not tens of thousands of people dying! I really need a different hobby; everyone in stamp collecting is so hostile! Could it actually be that the forum mods support the Murderous Evil Side in the conflict? Yeah, that must be it. It's like the dozens of excellent posts I made in the past about stamp collecting suddenly don't matter, you know? You're only as good as your last post in this goddamned forum, and if it wasn't about stamp collecting, you're garbage.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    As I pointed out in another comment the HN guidelines say: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. I find it interesting that I'm paid less than my male colleagues for the same amount of work (I am). You're welcome to argue I'm not a good hacker. >> Look, here you are, under a story about the origin of "pencil lead", going on about something entirely different, using the commenting system for private messaging. Yep, and here you are ranting that I violated the rule that the commenting system can't be used for private messaging; a rule that you invented on the spot just so you could rant at me. Btw, I do consider this thing we're having right now "civilised debate". One can argue robustly, speak frankly as you just did, and still be civilised. But one needs to be an adult to handle that.
    - kazinator 3y ago
      What that means is topics that hackers in particular would find interesting compared to non-hackers. If 90% of the hackers find something interesting, but 90% non-hackers also find it interesting, then it's not a hackerly topic. I.e. "... that good hackers (in particular, in contrast to the general population) would find interesting". That's the non-strawman interpretation. I'm positive I didn't just invent the idea that public forums are not for private messaging, let alone invent it today. In any case, that usually runs afoul of basic topicality. If you have to grasp at strawman, literal interpretations of the written guidelines to justify your behavior, some people who don't take those interpretations will probably find that behavior against the guidelines. I'm only articulating some possible reasons why your submission might be being flagged. (What it means for me to be wrong here is that, no those are not the reasons; it's something else.) In my opinion, possibly wrong, to avoid being flagged under a crowdsourced moderation model, your interpretation of the guidelines has to be similar to that of the crowd. The crowd is not going to take a literal, strawman interpretation of the rules. Maybe some of the crowd will but not all of it, and only a small fraction of the crowd is needed to flag you. If you're straining at the boundaries of the guidelines, the odds are heavily stacked against you.
dang 3y ago
I haven't had a chance to look at this thread - someone emailed about it a minute ago. I'll take a look later. In the meantime I've moved this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39867290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39867290 to the one it was intended to reply to.
pvg 3y ago
there are things we should be able to deal with on our own, like adults, right? I figured if it gets so bad that he or someone else notices then OK. Mass posting the same thing over and over to "get attention" is not the most adultlike of behaviours, at least in theory. You can just email and wait for a response, they're usually pretty quick and even if not, like with most regular HN posts, there wasn't any obvious urgency to yours. Beside the meta noise, tantrumposting doesn't accomplish anything emailing wouldn't and whatever it can accomplish would be no different than what emailing would, just much slower. It ends up working against your interest, beside annoying everyone else.