Hacker News Reader

Comment by reefoctopus | Hacker News Reader

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

I don't see why this would be a parody. If you're going to do that, surely you'd make some incredibly strict censorship tool, since that's what people against being considerate usually frame this kind of thing as.

I don't think that it's fair to describe criticism of this as against being considerate, it's more like, against imposing some people's ideas of how people should talk to each other on to unwitting users of some Internet service. Some people are assholes on the Internet, undoubtedly, and these people take up WAY too much space, but I don't think that this is a sensible way of dealing with the problem. Things like downvoting, blocking etc work by penalising the baddies, not by making everyone confirm to some artificial idea of what intelligent discourse looks like.

> against imposing some people's ideas of how people should talk to each other on to unwitting users of some Internet service

Where is this being imposed? Where does `alex` give any indication of being mandatory on an Internet service - and even if it was used, why would it be imposing? This merely suggests ways to be considerate.

I presume someone has written this in the hope of people using it. If it was used on a forum I posted on, I'd feel it as an imposition. It may be a suggestion only, but I'm suggesting it's a bad idea. It'd be like having your annoying friend who studied too much critical theory looking over your shoulder every time you want to write something.

> I presume someone has written this in the hope of people using it. If it was used on a forum I posted on, I'd feel it as an imposition.

I would assume the use case is for you to choose to use it on your own writing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com