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Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

Hiya Slowpoke. You seem to be new to HN. That's cool. We're very much unlike some other Internet communities which you've spent time on. In particular, we place a wee bit of emphasis on treating people like they are people, even when interacting with them over HTTP.

My name is Patrick. Pleased to meet you. I run a business which helps teach little kids to read, and spend a lot of time on HN as my hobby. A lot of HNers know me, have spoken to me, or have shaken my hand in person, because I'm a fairly personable guy. Most do not say "Hello Patrick, pleased to meet you, I don't give half a fuck whether you starve to death." That would be a wee bit uncouth.

We have guidelines here for the community's consensus on talking to each other: http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

I'd also like to leave you with a video from Derek Sivers, who also happens to be a HNer. I think the lesson is rather important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfwwHa-7Ux8

View on HN

While slowpoke's rudeness is to be deplored, you set yourself up for that. Attempting to tie your survival (ie whether you eat) with a political concept (support, or otherwise, of the current intellectual property regime) is a pretty poor argument. "Either you agree with me, or you want me to starve to death!"

I also don't appreciate the call to some kind of moral high ground - "I run a business which helps teach little kids to read". Yeah yeah. Maybe slowpoke has devoted his life to curing cancer in kittens. Wouldn't make any difference to his argument, either.

"I also don't appreciate the call to some kind of moral high ground ... Wouldn't make any difference to his argument, either."

In fact, the moral standing of participants in an argument does make a difference. It informs us regarding the credibility of their moral judgment. For example, the moral judgment of someone who knocks over convenience stores for a living is probably a wee bit less reliable than the moral judgment of someone who spends his time serving the poor in soup kitchens.

Well, at the risk of further downvotes, I think that's totally irrelevant. No-one is down at the soup kitchen asking what the volunteers have to say about intellectual property reform. It is a complicated topic and the personal altruism of the person making the argument has basically nothing to do with anything.

I'm quite acquainted with the general tenor of HN, thank you. I just don't have much nice words left for people who continue to spout lies, logical fallacies and also insult people to defend their failing business models. Your insults are merely prettily worded (in other words, ad hominem).

I could do that too, I just prefer to speak plain text instead of hiding behind verbosity, calling it 'treating people like people' to appear superior in a discussion.

Also, you haven't even adressed any of my arguments. The only thing I got from you now is even more appeal to emotion ('look what a nice guy I am!') and a change of subject.

Oh, and by the way: I'm usually a nice guy too. Horribly fallacious claims from people defending copyright constitute my beserk button though.

> "I'm quite acquainted with the general tenor of HN"

Either you are less aware than you believe, or you choose to violate our community standards anyway.

Whichever it is, I encourage you to adjust your behavior. Your "beserk button" does not need to be on display here.

Well, ignoring counterarguments, blabbering fallacious nonsense and citing 'community standards' to hide the first two things seems to be a 'community standard' amongst some people here as well.

If you care more for being nice than for valid arguments, then I indeed appear to be in willing violation of 'community standards'.

> "If you care more for being nice than for valid arguments"

I care for both.

Do not ignore the former simply because you feel someone else has failed at the latter. There's always room to pair valid arguments with civility; save the berserking for WoW.

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