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Comment by plastiquebeech | Hacker News Reader

Same reason that people run community gardens, or set up trusts to maintain local trails. Because they care.

Maybe some things, like human relationships and communication, are better off without a profit motive.

There is still a profit motive there, the dictionary definition of profit isn't limited to just monetary profit.

This is dangerously close to equivocating on "profit motive". "Profit", as actually used, is almost always meant in the strictly monetary sense, not as a synonym with "for a benefit", which is very broad. When the "benefit" becomes "I personally feel good about helping", comparing it to making money is inaccurate at best.

It's possible to discuss things according to their dictionary definition.

But more often it's useless. If you're trying to communicate with someone who's clearly not using the dictionary definition, it's probably only good for detangling their actual usage, aka meta-argument. In this case, certainly, you did not address the substance of their argument with your objection about the definition of "profit".

Also, I don't know what dictionary you're looking at. These all seem pretty money-focused to me. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng... https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/profi... https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profit

If you closely inspect a dictionary you can see that there can be multiple meanings for a given word.

Visiting your last link for Merriam-Webster, you will see a '1 of 2' and a '2 of 2' beside these distinct meanings.

But you're going to "well actually" someone's comment based on the second definition when they're using the first, rather than actually communicate. Makes perfect sense.

So do you now understand how a dictionary can list multiple meanings?

If there’s still a comprehension difficulty dictionaries usually contain an explanatory guide as to how things work.

I've always understood how a dictionary entry can have multiple meanings. You're the one who started off citing "the" dictionary definition.

Whereas my point since the start has been that the dictionary definition is barely relevant to good-faith communication, which tries to understand what the other person means and engage with that. Even if they're using the number 1 definition, and you'd rather use number 2.

Your prior comment seems to indicate confusion about what you see on these dictionary websites.

"Also, I don't know what dictionary you're looking at. These all seem pretty money-focused to me. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng... https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/profi... https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profit"

Whereas in fact their definitions of 'profit' are not written to a specific 'money-focused' meaning.

Dictionary definitions for commonly used word are almost never 'focused' on a specific meaning for the reasons previously described.

Fair enough.

I would still rather have a diverse ecosystem of power-tripping moderators than a few unavoidable ones, though. There would probably be more calm tidal pools like the one that dang cultivates here.

If the average community size was smaller, wouldn't the average 'power-tripping moderatos' within each community need to behave more strongly over fewer folks to maintain the same level of satisfaction?

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