4 ms·

Both your first examples are clearly against HN mods' expectations as a close review of the searches I give above will show. Asking for reasons for disagreemen

Both your first examples are clearly against HN mods' expectations as a close review of the searches I give above will show. Asking for reasons for disagreement (not downvotes) is legitimate, and I challenge you to find any instances in which mods admonish this practice. Again, the mods' comments form a large body of informal guidance on HN practices. Those practices are explicitly NOT written precisely or in detail for both brevity and flexibility. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22267961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22267961>, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7798120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7798120>, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7617961>, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606756>. HN's guiding principle is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" (<https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>, 1st 'graph). This means fighting against any behaviours which will cause the site to lose its mind, a constant battle of the mods. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17689715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17689715>. The balance is delicate. The root comment in this thread would have been more effective without the downvote-grousing throat clearing: "in the USA we have non-profit organizations. You might have heard of things like the YMCA, BGCA, etc." Even that 2nd sentence is probably needlessly provocative, and could be rewritten as "Such as the YMCA...". Spending time with HN may be useful in refining rhetorical technique in such ways. Oh, and for the record, by no means do I agree with mods in all cases (and I'm absolutely not one myself). I'll occasionally downvote, or flag, admonishments if I find them entirely off-base or tone-deaf. But for the most part I understand why the guidelines and actions exist. Where I disagree, it's generally because the guidelines themselves impose an inequality-amplifying bias to the site.

em-bee 4mo ago
Both your first examples are clearly against HN mods' expectations as a close review of the searches I give above will show. i read every single one of those messages before writing my previous comment and i came to a different conclusion. Asking for reasons for disagreement (not downvotes) is legitimate my point is that if you apply charitable reading then both are the same thing. someone asking for reasons for downvotes is simply looking to understand and not to complain. The root comment in this thread would have been more effective without the downvote-grousing throat clearing yes, i did mention that too. pointing that out instead of just linking to a moderator message would have been a more effective response too :-)

em-bee 4mo ago

Both your first examples are clearly against HN mods' expectations as a close review of the searches I give above will show. i read every single one of those messages before writing my previous comment and i came to a different conclusion. Asking for reasons for disagreement (not downvotes) is legitimate my point is that if you apply charitable reading then both are the same thing. someone asking for reasons for downvotes is simply looking to understand and not to complain. The root comment in this thread would have been more effective without the downvote-grousing throat clearing yes, i did mention that too. pointing that out instead of just linking to a moderator message would have been a more effective response too :-)