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As a community, a lot of us want to keep the site to higher standards than other websites. Straight from the guidelines: "When disagreeing, please reply to the

As a community, a lot of us want to keep the site to higher standards than other websites. Straight from the guidelines: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."" With respect to the "autistic" comment, the "autistic" could have similarly been dropped and the point made much stronger. Instead most people are going to ignore any points that could have been made±—the comment is already greyed out. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Pacabel 12y ago
When I read that earlier comment, I don't see "semi-autistic semantics" being used as an insult. I think it's actually quite relevant given the context, and appropriate given the argument that was being made. Defining characteristics of autism (that is, the medical condition) include a deficiency when it comes to social understanding, a tendency to have an extreme focus on minor details, and an inherent inability to grasp the "big picture". The earlier comment describes how certain attempts to justify what happened in a particular situation end up exhibiting similar traits. These justifications do not correspond well at all with how society at large interprets the situation, and they have a very narrow focus that ignores the larger social aspects of the situation. I could see it being insulting if the earlier comment labelled somebody as being autistic in an attempt to discredit them, but in this case it's describing certain traits that correlate quite well with the medical condition and how those who suffer from said condition often behave. If a person who suffers from a poor ability to understand the society around them, and who also tends to be unrelentingly focused on minute details, can be diagnosed as having "autism", then I think a similar diagnosis is perfectly reasonable when applied to an argument or justification that exhibits the same traits. It's a perfectly legitimate way of describing such arguments/justifications that don't mesh well with the social reality.
- DanBC 12y ago
  It's pure and simple stigma. Your ignorance of ASD does not excuse piss-poor metaphor.
  - Pacabel 12y ago
    Putting your nonsense accusations and political correctness hypersensitivity aside, can you please provide us with a better single-word term that precisely describes something (such as an argument or a justification) that's so narrowly and uncompromisingly focused so as to totally miss how society at large will interpret it? And, please, be serious about this. Suggesting words like "intolerant" or "wrong" wouldn't be helpful, obviously. If you have such a problem with the term used previously, provide us with one that offers just as much meaning, but isn't "offensive" to people who are overly sensitive.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      For this example: autistic misses the mark because people with autism will be described as being too literal. Hence books like "It's Raining Cats and Dogs: An Autism Spectrum Guide to the Confusing World of Idioms, Metaphors and Everyday Expressions" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Raining-Cats-Dogs-Expressions/dp/1849052832 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Raining-Cats-Dogs-Expressions/dp... > The earlier comment describes how certain attempts to justify what happened in a particular situation end up exhibiting similar traits. Here's what that comment said: "A non-technical person will not consider that any different. After all, said automated process was created and deployed by Google engineers, so it's still Google engineers browsing through people's private photos." But this thread is full of people saying that comparing hashes is not anything like engineers looking at your photos, and most of those people do not have ASDisorders, thus claiming only a person with autism would claim such is wrong. > Putting your nonsense accusations and political correctness hypersensitivity aside Great way to hold a constructive discussion.
      - Pacabel 12y ago
        Like I said, please put your political correctness to the side so that we can discuss this like adults. What is an alternative term that conveys the exact same concept that was discussed earlier, but without being deemed "offensive" by people who are particularly sensitive? If you have a problem with the perfectly legitimate term that was being used earlier, then the constructive thing to do would be for you to provide an equivalent or better alternative.
tomjen3 12y ago
The only reason it was greyed out was that people got upset and downvoted it. And while my comment now has -4 it had previously +4 so evidently not everybody agrees with your community standards.
- Pacabel 12y ago
  This site needs some kind of meta-moderation system, or some other way to moderate the moderation. What you describe seems to be happening more and more often these days, and I think it's harmful. Comments will receive many upvotes, and then suddenly start getting many downvotes. Or it'll happen the other way around. When that kind of fluctuation is happening, I think the only appropriate thing to do, especially when downvotes or downvoted comments are involved, is to show the comment normally, instead of obscuring it with harder to read grey text. Clearly there's some agreement, and there's some disagreement, so the only sane thing to do is to show the comment so readers can make their own analyses of it.
  - krapp 12y ago
    I believe the site's answer to that is to have the downvotes by higher karma users count more. It's not fair, but the staff have mentioned that the site isn't intended to be fair, it's intended to preserve intellectual quality and signal over noise at all costs. Given the choice between showing a potentially controversial comment by default and censoring it by default, they would probably opt for the latter, because it makes them easier to ignore. You can still select the text to read it if you want to. Which I guess is slightly better than just automatically deleting them or something.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Quis meta-arbitrat ipsos meta-arbitri?

Pacabel 12y ago

When I read that earlier comment, I don't see "semi-autistic semantics" being used as an insult. I think it's actually quite relevant given the context, and appropriate given the argument that was being made. Defining characteristics of autism (that is, the medical condition) include a deficiency when it comes to social understanding, a tendency to have an extreme focus on minor details, and an inherent inability to grasp the "big picture". The earlier comment describes how certain attempts to justify what happened in a particular situation end up exhibiting similar traits. These justifications do not correspond well at all with how society at large interprets the situation, and they have a very narrow focus that ignores the larger social aspects of the situation. I could see it being insulting if the earlier comment labelled somebody as being autistic in an attempt to discredit them, but in this case it's describing certain traits that correlate quite well with the medical condition and how those who suffer from said condition often behave. If a person who suffers from a poor ability to understand the society around them, and who also tends to be unrelentingly focused on minute details, can be diagnosed as having "autism", then I think a similar diagnosis is perfectly reasonable when applied to an argument or justification that exhibits the same traits. It's a perfectly legitimate way of describing such arguments/justifications that don't mesh well with the social reality.

DanBC 12y ago
It's pure and simple stigma. Your ignorance of ASD does not excuse piss-poor metaphor.
- Pacabel 12y ago
  Putting your nonsense accusations and political correctness hypersensitivity aside, can you please provide us with a better single-word term that precisely describes something (such as an argument or a justification) that's so narrowly and uncompromisingly focused so as to totally miss how society at large will interpret it? And, please, be serious about this. Suggesting words like "intolerant" or "wrong" wouldn't be helpful, obviously. If you have such a problem with the term used previously, provide us with one that offers just as much meaning, but isn't "offensive" to people who are overly sensitive.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    For this example: autistic misses the mark because people with autism will be described as being too literal. Hence books like "It's Raining Cats and Dogs: An Autism Spectrum Guide to the Confusing World of Idioms, Metaphors and Everyday Expressions" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Raining-Cats-Dogs-Expressions/dp/1849052832 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Raining-Cats-Dogs-Expressions/dp... > The earlier comment describes how certain attempts to justify what happened in a particular situation end up exhibiting similar traits. Here's what that comment said: "A non-technical person will not consider that any different. After all, said automated process was created and deployed by Google engineers, so it's still Google engineers browsing through people's private photos." But this thread is full of people saying that comparing hashes is not anything like engineers looking at your photos, and most of those people do not have ASDisorders, thus claiming only a person with autism would claim such is wrong. > Putting your nonsense accusations and political correctness hypersensitivity aside Great way to hold a constructive discussion.
    - Pacabel 12y ago
      Like I said, please put your political correctness to the side so that we can discuss this like adults. What is an alternative term that conveys the exact same concept that was discussed earlier, but without being deemed "offensive" by people who are particularly sensitive? If you have a problem with the perfectly legitimate term that was being used earlier, then the constructive thing to do would be for you to provide an equivalent or better alternative.

tomjen3 12y ago

The only reason it was greyed out was that people got upset and downvoted it. And while my comment now has -4 it had previously +4 so evidently not everybody agrees with your community standards.

Pacabel 12y ago
This site needs some kind of meta-moderation system, or some other way to moderate the moderation. What you describe seems to be happening more and more often these days, and I think it's harmful. Comments will receive many upvotes, and then suddenly start getting many downvotes. Or it'll happen the other way around. When that kind of fluctuation is happening, I think the only appropriate thing to do, especially when downvotes or downvoted comments are involved, is to show the comment normally, instead of obscuring it with harder to read grey text. Clearly there's some agreement, and there's some disagreement, so the only sane thing to do is to show the comment so readers can make their own analyses of it.
- krapp 12y ago
  I believe the site's answer to that is to have the downvotes by higher karma users count more. It's not fair, but the staff have mentioned that the site isn't intended to be fair, it's intended to preserve intellectual quality and signal over noise at all costs. Given the choice between showing a potentially controversial comment by default and censoring it by default, they would probably opt for the latter, because it makes them easier to ignore. You can still select the text to read it if you want to. Which I guess is slightly better than just automatically deleting them or something.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Quis meta-arbitrat ipsos meta-arbitri?