Hacker News Reader

Comment by comesee | Hacker News Reader

I'm respectful and polite in this forum. I've been blocked simply for saying things with which some largish group of down voters don't agree. I am trying to leave this site but boredom always pulls me back :) That and I really do like to browse the posts and comment, engage with, and challenge people. Here's one such arbitrarily blocked comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17517643

You can't read it but I screenshotted it for you. Dang calls me a troll simply for asking him to clarify and tells me to leave the site. "Legalistic Gambit of the troll," as if I'm trying to win some game. All I want is to be treated fairly on this site. It was very hurtful.

https://ibb.co/hoSMHK

View on HN

These comments were flagged by users and they can be seen. And you seem to want to engage in a 'debate' that is offtopic for the site. The mods are telling you you can't. Users, with their votes and flags, are telling you the same thing.

Those comments cannot be seen, they are marked as "[flagged]" if you browse with cookies off, at least. I disagree that it was off topic, it was directly related to the post I was replying to. I understand that people might disagree with the content of the post but that shouldn't be cause to censor it on a forum for civil discussion, should it?

It's not civil if the rules are repeatedly pointed out to you and you choose to disregard them. It's the opposite of civil.

The comments can be seen by logged-in users who have 'show dead' turned on. But we started at 'moderators censor comments'. Which they generally don't and haven't in your case. That's all.

Fair but they effectively did censor my comment if they didn't honor my request to unflag it. In any case, do you think that comment should have been censored? If so, why?

The flagging was done by users because the comment violates the site guidelines. The moderators didn't 'unflag' it because they they agreed with the users flagging the comment that it violates the site guidelines.

That comment was flagged to death. Members can flag. Blaming the mods suggests that, at best, you don't actually understand how the forum works.

Admittedly I'm not an expert on the censorship rules of the site but I was under the impression that the mods had the ability to unflag comments. It was never made clear to me why that comment was flagged or why it was considered "flamebait" and that's why I consider HN's censorship rules arbitrary. There was nothing rude or personally antagonistic or unscientific about that post.

Insisting over and over that you are not being offensive while people keep repeating their disagreement with the idea by downvoting and/or flagging your comments suggests your social skills could use some polish.

You are entitled to your opinions, but you do not get to unilaterally determine what others do or do not find offensive. That's not how the universe works.

Hey, no need to insult my social skills. I get that maybe the content of my post offends some people but it is scientific fact. There's a difference between being intentionally rude / antagonistic, and civilly presenting data that some people find offensive. Just because people find the data offensive, that shouldn't be cause to censor the data on a forum for civil discussion, should it?

The data isn't being censored. Flamebait actively undermines civility and that's all the mods were trying to address.

There are ways to make similar points without it being flamebait. If you really feel it is important to discuss such things, you could work on improving your framing and diplomacy instead of continuing to complain about the incident two months later in an unrelated discussion.

There's also no intent to insult your social skills. But the reality is there are only two reasonable ways to interpret your behavior here:

1. Either you legitimately are failing to understand. (There can be myriad reasons for that. Disability is not the only possible reason.)

2. You actually are a troll.

The first is the more charitable interpretation and the one I am most prone to because I raised two special needs sons. So I default to assuming someone honestly doesn't understand for some reason because I've dealt with that a lot in life.

It sometimes gets me into social hot water when I am sincerely trying to be helpful.

Like now.

I think what you are failing to understand is that merely offending people is not punishable by censorship in a liberal society. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I antagonized no one, merely provided an observation. Flamebait is not an objective term, anyone can claim anything is flamebait if enough people agree. Indeed, I was flaming no one, it was only used as a smear against me to justify censoring me and there is no greater insult to free inquiry than that. As long as you condone the censoring of my comment based on what you perceive is poor tact, you oppose the foundational principles upon which our modern liberal society is built. As long as HN maintains the flag on my comment, they too oppose those same principles.

No, I'm not failing to understand that. If I weren't a big proponent of free speech and inclusion, I wouldn't be bothering to engage you. Just ignoring your complaint is the easiest answer here. I'm not required to stick my neck out. I'm not a mod. I can just flag and downvote and move on and that's the cover my own butt option that most people will take, which tends to help keep such things intractable because if the flags and downvotes worked to convince you to do something different, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Opening with an assertion on your part that I am failing to understand is borderline personal attack and disrespects the fact that I am choosing to talk with you and give some of my time and energy to you. Above, you say there is no need to insult your social skills. Now you turn around and insult my intelligence and character.

In other words, you are taking a position that I need to be civil and respectful and work hard to not inadvertently insult you, but you don't have to do the same, for me or generally. Expecting the same of you is framed as censorship and as a moral defect on the part of people who don't agree with you and are expressing that fact, whether with words or downvotes or flags. They aren't allowed to express their disagreement because that's censorship of you in your eyes.

I'm a woman. I'm quite open about that. This is an overwhelmingly male forum. I routinely deal with downvotes and such because I'm a demographic outlier.

I am unwilling to be broken. I am unwilling to be cowed and trained to not give my actual point of view in order to be able to stay. Staying on such terms strikes me as pointless. This disposition has helped get me thrown off of several other forums.

But I've worked hard at trying to figure out how to respect others while expressing myself here. I've worked hard at figuring out better ways to express what I want to say so I'm actually heard and not presumed to be some man-hating feminazi with an axe to grind.

For a long time, it was a hard row to hoe. So I'm very sympathetic to people who are frustrated with trying to participate here and feeling mistreated.

So I occasionally try to talk to folks who are having trouble fitting in to try to say "Hey, I get it, it's frustrating and a sucky experience. But there are things you can do on your end to make this work better."

And that's my reason for engaging you. But now I'm being lumped in with "those people" who are silencing you, never mind that I'm giving you ample opportunity to talk here.

At this point, I'm feeling pretty darn disrespected and like I'm a fool, "as usual", and feeling like only an idiot would reach out to someone under such circumstances and it's no wonder your comments get so many downvotes and flags, because ugh this is feeling like all down side for me. So I will likely be bowing out of the discussion because I'm aggravated and it doesn't look productive to me.

That's not a personal attack.

You aren't owed a full airing of and engagement with your views in the venue and on the topic and terms of your choosing. Neither is anyone else - this 'foundational principle of our modern liberal society' isn't there to uniquely oppress you.

Indeed, I was flaming no one

That's not what 'flaimbait' means.

You aren't owed a full airing of and engagement with your views in the venue and on the topic and terms of your choosing.

This was something I wrestled with for a long time, in part because I've had a lot of great personal relationships in which hashing everything out and making sure both sides get really heard, etc, is the norm. And it simply doesn't work on a public forum.

Another thing I did for a long time was just reply to everyone who replied to me. I felt that was the polite and respectful thing to do. In meat space, it is unconscionably rude to refuse to reply to someone who has addressed you directly.

But this isn't meat space and in practice it often winds up looking pigheaded, obtuse, fighty and like one is refusing to back down when you do this on the internet, in part due to lack of voice tone, facial expression, etc.

Hi Doreen, I simply stated "what you failed to understand" because you posed the theory that I was either a troll or "failing to understand" (your words) that my post offended people.

Yes I've admitted that the content of my post may have offended some people. The issue I'm raising is that that shouldn't matter. What matters is if I was using openly rude, disrespectful, or antagonistic behavior. My original comment did none of that and was in good faith and was meant to provide an interesting sociological take on a current event.

I don't want a megaphone or a soap box for the random scientific studies I reference on this forum. I simply do not want to be censored for citing data with which people disagree. If I was intentionally being rude or disrespectful then I would understand the censorship, since that is verbal assault, but that is not the case here. I will not self-censor for the sake of upvotes. I'm a respectful adult who believes in liberalism, free inquiry, and civil discussion, no other conditions need apply. If the HN mods disagree then it can't be honestly claimed that this a forum that stands for free inquiry and civil discussion.

One of the reasons I'm not Christian is because Christianity posits that "god loves you" and acts like doing god's will is some kind of vending machine for getting everything you want out of life or something. The idea that "god loves you" unconditionally and will do your bidding and arrange life to suit your whims runs up against problems in a world of 7 billion people.

Similarly, the mods must balance the good of the whole against the good of the individual, and they must do so without the benefit of omniscience and omnipotence.

Asking specific individuals who have done X (in this case posting flamebait) to please not do X is one of the tools they have for trying to let individuals speak without it being unduly problematic for the forum as a whole.

Allowing individuals to do X and then trying to get after everyone else for "taking the bait" so to speak is just not a good way to handle things.

I'm fond of the mods. I think they do an uncommonly good job. Granted, I'm possibly biased because I appear to be the only woman to have ever made the leaderboard, so the way they currently handle things arguably works for me.

I wish you well and I hope you eventually find a way to interact with the forum that satisfies you. I personally think you are completely unnecessarily turning this into a hill to die on and that tends to lead to being banned if you persist long enough. That's just reality. The mods have to call it quits at some point when someone is regularly breaking the rules and refuses to cooperate when they are told the rules apply to them and they are currently breaking them.

But I really need to get on with my life. I have other things to tend to today and I was only foolishly engaging you yesterday because I was under the weather and, at such times, bad habits of mine tend to come to the fore, such as me trying to be kind and helpful to strangers even though there is a very long history of that biting me in the ass bigtime and I really should know better by now.

So you will need to excuse me, but I'm feeling better today and not so inclined to feel like "Fuck this shitty, shitty world and it's asshole rules about not being kind to people because looking out for number one is all that fucking matters." That's a form of temporary insanity I am prone to (that never fails to bite me in the ass when I indulge it) and I'm more rational today.

Ciao.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com