So today I wanted to say thanks, on behalf of the HN community.
Running a forum is hard work and everyone wants to devolve every mod decision into rules lawyering, like "well, then why wasn't this specific thing in the rules?"
No, there can't be a rule for literally everything, so you're just going to have to be an adult and take it on the chin when the mods make a decision and double down on it. I completely empathize with dang's final post, that your "legalistic gambit" is a waste of everyone's time, and often the platform people like to spring off some sort of "omg the mod tyranny" campaign.
That happened over 70 days ago. Maybe it's time to let it go and learn to live with the fact that your tiny comment was flagged. Looking at your post history, you've lived through much worse, respectfully.
You're going to have to live with that.
If you disagree so much, maybe it's time to go somewhere else and spare the rest of us from your permanent, belabored grudge. Like, boo hoo. Seriously. Hopefully you find something else to spend your precious time on earth worrying about.
That nobody else really cares will be a critical life lesson for you.
But, when that arbitrariness always, always favors one set of viewpoints and suppresses others according to content, then in becomes a problem. That's not randomness, that's bias.
Eg: Person A says controversial opinion X, person B counters with controversial opinion Y. This can lead to a flame war. But which controversial opinion gets censored? The one the mods disagree with. And the excuse it, to prevent a flame war. Which is valid. But it's always the same side of the discussion that gets silenced by power.
The pre-judged outcome really drains the life and value from a lot of the most enervating discussions around here. I'd rather have read "flamewar" (as long as it's not personal) than an enforced echo chamber.
> pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility
From the OSS (CIA) Simple Sabotage Manual: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...
(1) Insist on doing everything through"channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make "speeches," Talk as frequently as possible and at great length., Illustrate your. points.. by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible - never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. . . .
That was an interesting comment, it's a pity it went out like this.
> dang called me a troll after I simply asked him exactly what it was about my comment that warranted it being removed.
Why do you think this tiny little comment worthy of immediate massive downvotes so that no one even can upvote it any more?
Is it your expectation that people commenting here must submit themselves to popular opinion? Is diverging from group think or disagreeing with mods punishable by immediate shadow banning?
It's unpleasant reading people taking out their axes to grind, especially on this page. "Boo hoo, they treat me so badly, it's a horrible place" etc.. That's why people downvote. The mods seem admirable here to me, very much so. And of course on this page you will find people who appreciate them, that's the theme of the page. No conspiracy theory needed. And most people here really like HN, don't think it's awful, or we wouldn't be here. So why are you here? If what you say is right, then life's too short to waste at a place like this, isn't it. Maybe look at what you've 'turned into'.
Yes, you're right about the moral police part, I'm trying hard to stop doing this. I try to help like this and usually just get downvoted. Plus it just adds more at-best-useless comments to the site. But it is hard not to want to refute what seem unjust, unfair accusations, of the site or people on here, when I see them. But the best answer is just to downvote and/or flag, as recommended in the guidelines, I guess. Ok bye.
Or is your point just baseless name calling and dehumanization: that you think the humans on HN behave like chimps, but you don't have any proof of that, just proof of how chimps behave?
If you just want to call people chimps, then just call people chimps and take your licks for that, but stop beating around the bushes like such a chimp.
Looks like you blew a seal!
You've seen the cartoon of course, haven't you? Of course you have, because you're acting exactly as the cartoon describes, and you are well aware of what you're doing, while pretending you don't know, and that you never heard of the term, even after it's been pointed out to you several times.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning
Now that I've given you a link and explained it to you yet again, your pretense of not knowing what we're talking about when we accuse you of sea-lioning is no longer valid, so give it up.
Failure to acknowledge that you've read the definition of that term, understand what it means, and how it perfectly describes what you're doing, constitutes an admission of guilt that you're not arguing in good faith.
Is it possible to bring up ape behavioral studies without being accused of bad intentions? What do you propose is the best way to go about it?
Notice how that's apparently perfectly fine to say, but someone critical of something on HN would have to get lucky to be able to speak like that, as demonstrated in this thread.
Another highly selectively enforced rule.