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saberience ◴[] No.32769157[source]
It's weird, I've never considered myself a "royalist" but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don't quite understand why I feel so very sad. I guess I have grown up and lived my whole life (as a Brit) seeing and hearing the Queen, singing "God save the Queen" etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all things pass in time, which makes my heart ache deeply.
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orobinson ◴[] No.32769695[source]
I feel the same. I think it’s because it really represents the end of an era. The 20th and early 21st century ushered in unprecedented improvements to quality of life in Britain but it has felt of late that that has peaked and the country is facing a serious decline: Brexit, the increasingly visible effects of climate change, the aftermath of covid, the possible break up of the union, rising costs of living, recession, possibly even war. The death of Elizabeth II coincides with the end of a long period of stability and comfort and is not only a poignant point in history itself but a marker for a transitional point in history for our country.
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ralusek[dead post] ◴[] No.32769895[source]
dang ◴[] No.32770206[source]
We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments. That's not allowed here.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

(Since someone is now about to accuse me of stealth Brexit sideage—no, this is just about the tiny business of moderating an internet forum, and that is all.)

I don't lightly ban a 7-year-old account, but (a) we've warned you many times:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22976700 (April 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20912638 (Sept 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20477028 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19765448 (April 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17865589 (Aug 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17623237 (July 2018)

... and (b) you've broken the site guidelines repeatedly lately.

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wawjgreen[dead post] ◴[] No.32770882[source]
munk-a ◴[] No.32771043[source]
If you're talking about American free speech your speech is protected from government censorship, not private censorship on a private platform. HN admins really do try to avoid putting their fingers on the scale when it comes to legitimate disagreements but that comment was dead'd for being flamebait and lacking substance - it added nothing of value to the discussion and veered far off topic (much like your comment and my reply do, but thankfully we're in a dead branch of a comment thread so this won't pollute most user's views).

HN exists (partially) to surface interesting news and foster discussions of that news - flamebait is never interesting and it doesn't lead to interesting discussions. We of the internet discovered, during the usenet days, that reducing a conversation to a shouting match is boring - so to promote a more healthy dialog HN specifically removes inflammatory comments unless they bring an interesting topic to light (and even then it's just nicer to communicate in a polite manner) - as this is the goal for this private forum it's completely within its right to restrict discussions that go against that goal and restrict users that repeatedly violate that goal. The internet is a large place and there are plenty of other forums that cater to other forms of expression - the first amendment exists primarily to make it illegal for the government to say such places can't exist - it doesn't obligate all places to act in such a manner nor mandate the existence of such places.

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1. em-bee ◴[] No.32771799[source]
shouting matches prevent an engaged discussion. on the current topic we can either discuss what the death of the queen means to us, or we can yell at each other for having the wrong opinions. but we can't do both. it won't work, and it doesn't provide any useful data because the shouting matches bury the other discussions which would actually be interesting. it's not possible to ignore them if there is no way to signal that those comments are not welcome. that's what downvotes are for.

people who do nothing but shout their arguments without engaging in good natured discussion are therefore equally not welcome. as a community we need the ability to stop those people from derailing our discussions.

the problem with flaimbait is that it is that it motivates people who like to shout. in a perfect community where noone engages in shouting matches, flaimbait would be unable to start any fights. it would therefore be harmless and ignored. but rarely is a community perfect, and so it is helpful to remind people to not do that.

to know why this particular comment was flaimbait it may be necessary to learn more about the topic and what kind of responses it draws out. understanding this is the job of the moderators. and while the moderators aren't perfect either, they are doing a god job so far, and instead of rejecting particular moderation actions it would be better to find different, less controversial ways to approach the topic in question, which in this case surely did happen. the topic brought up by the banned account has been discussed on this site multiple times in a more civilized form.

right here we have an example of an engaged civilized discussion. this is as it should be, however it is off topic, so people would still be in their right to downvote all of the comments in this subthread, including mine. we can and should have this discussion, but not here where the topic is the death of the british queen and not freedom of speech.