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I'm one of the flaggers. This is just my opinion, I'm not speaking for the others, but: I flagged because the piece is poorly argued and mostly just spiteful.
by lolinder 2y ago
I'm one of the flaggers. This is just my opinion, I'm not speaking for the others, but: I flagged because the piece is poorly argued and mostly just spiteful.
It starts off on a bad foot by implying that Dorsey chose to sell Twitter to Musk and made billions on the sale, both of which are false. Dorsey was forced to sell Twitter to Musk by the shareholders and the board. The shareholders profited, but Dorsey actually did not sell his shares, which means he did not cash out and instead lost money over the course of Musk's tenure. All of that nuance is ignored in favor of a swipe that's used to imply that Dorsey is a billionaire because he profited off selling Twitter to the far right.
Then later he uses his dislike for Dorsey in particular (and don't get me wrong, there are plenty of reasons to dislike Dorsey even if the Twitter sale isn't one of them) to justify saying that all billionaires should be unwelcome at FOSDEM. This isn't backed up by any sort of argument for why this generalization makes sense, it's just assumed that you should agree with him. Maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't, but there's no argument there.
In all, I'm unimpressed with the piece and the comment section reflected the mood of the piece: kind of mindlessly cranky without much thought. So I flagged the article because it's not the kind of thing that I think belongs on HN.
- airhangerf15 2y agoI don't understand why DeVault's website is still allowed on Orange Reddit. There are people who I really respect who write good, non-spiteful, intelligent pieces who are still shadow banned after 5+ years.
- phoronixrly 2y ago> If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it Is this story spam or off-topic? What is the topic anyway? Is an article ever on topic if it's not one of Paul Graham's "essays"?
- lolinder 2y agoYou're taking that quote out of context to imply that the guideline says that's the only reason to flag. That's not what it's saying, it's saying that you shouldn't post comments complaining about spam—flag and move on. There are plenty of other reasons to flag a story, and it being a spiteful piece devoid of any semblance of curiosity seems as good reason as any.
- phoronixrly 2y agoYes, apparently one of these reasons is "I didn't really like it". Good job!
- lolinder 2y agoAs I said: > In all, I'm unimpressed with the piece and the comment section reflected the mood of the piece: kind of mindlessly cranky without much thought. Thanks for proving my point.
- anonfordays 2y agoWe shouldn't be platforming or providing safe spaces to pedophiles. I flag any and all Drew DeVault content because I don't want this to be a pedophile bar.
- phoronixrly 2y agoOK, but how does this invalidate the point that billionaires are off-topic for FOSDEM?
- anonfordays 2y agoNon sequitur, the point is irrelevant. Flag all content, comments, posts, etc. from pedophiles and move on.