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Comment by freshair | Hacker News Reader

From where I am sitting, your characterization of seriousquestion's comment as a "very shallow dismissal" is itself a very shallow dismissal. Substantially shallower than seriousquestion's comment, which at least contains an argument about consumer demand shaping the products the clothing industry creates.

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Indeed, moderation comments suck. They suck even more to write than to read, if that helps at all (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...).

The GP comment is actually a string of internet clichés: (1) "it's not some conspiracy", (2) "if they could sell" (3) "if you think [...] you should". That plus the confrontational edge makes it a flamewar comment. We're trying to avoid those here.

Btw, one key thing to look for is whether a comment engages anything specific in an article, or is just using it to make a generic point. The latter is always a bad sign in HN threads.

Gonna stick my neck out here to say that I think that that comment got to the heart of the matter, and your enumerated cliches are in fact apropos, in that TFA is actually positing a conspiracy, and if it were true, then there is an untapped related market opportunity, as well as a better means of confirming its truth (namely by selling pants with bigger pockets).

Well, maybe, but then it would be just as possible to post an interesting and substantive comment about it, which would be inside the site guidelines instead of breaking them.

Yet if GP comment on an article about phone sizes was "there is no conspiracy, people just like big phones", you wouldn't call it out as flamewar.

You only do that on certain topics.

I'm afraid you lost me. Are you suggesting that HN moderation is in the pocket of Big Phone?

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