Comment by johnnyworker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnnyworker | Hacker News Reader

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> You've been posting many dozens of comments about this and basically nothing about anything else for a long time now.

A long time? A few comments in the last week. Do I owe you token comments on other subjects? I am reading, I just haven't seen anything I had anything to say about in the last week. This is the subject I currently am learning about.

For example, on that Ultima thread, I wrote a long comment and then didn't post it because I am too sad and too appalled. I thought fuck this, IDF soldiers brag about bombing schools so kids can't become engineers, and I'm posting some derpy nostalgic anecdote?

So? I don't owe you or anyone comments pretending everything is alright.

What a weird, arbitrary criticism. So now, whenever I say anything about this subject, I'm out? Or is there a quota?

I can only say as vaguely defined and as arbitrarily applied the terms you use are, it's just whatever. I tried my best, I refrained from personal attack and generally posted less than when you talked last to me, that's all I can do, if you want to ban me for not posting enough filler, just do it, it's fine. But when it's justified in this Kafkaesque way -- as "standard" as it may be -- I simply can't follow and can't care.

> if you're relating to what the other person is saying, remaining respectful

How did I not do that here? If someone brings up morality as an argument, and with this issue in general, morality is on the table. It's not a discussion about tabs vs. spaces.

It isn't hard to understand if you consider this site as a whole. We're trying to optimize for intellectually curious conversation. That's not what you've been doing, and you've been posting a lot. It's that simple.

As I read your comments, you have routinely been crossing over the line into disrespect and even getting aggressive. Of course this is a matter of interpretation, affected by differing cultural standards and whatnot, but I think most HN readers would perceive your comments this way—at least to the extent one can factor out political agreement/disagreement with them. I realize that the topic lends itself to this (to put it mildly) and that other users are also doing a lot of it. But that's why the guidelines say ""Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.".

Even just taking your GP comment:

* beginning with "What $thing?" is already abrupt and signals hostility - this is the kind of thing the guidelines mean when they say "don't cross-examine."

* "You are currently shrugging off the $horrible" is pejorative and personal, and immediately ups the ante.

* "with that broad brush racist talk" - again pejorative and personal, and escalates further

* "And on top of all that, which is grave enough" - more rhetoric of cross-examination

* "you simply ignore everything I posted that demonstrated" - similar

* "you now use as an excuse" - again pejorative and personal

* "you now use as an excuse to commit wanton mass murder" - WTF? This reads as if you are accusing the person you are talking to of that. If so, that's completely beyond the pale. More likely your sentence here was confusingly written, but that too is against the site guidelines, because getting carried away with such rhetoric is the opposite of what commenters should be doing. After barraging the other person with that many swipes, tropes, and denunciations, I would expect the person on the receiving end of that to react extremely badly, and this would largely your fault for commenting so aggressively.

I'm quite aware that (1) lots of other people are posting like this, (2) the topic lends itself to it, and (3) the topic is important. But I'm not aware of any other commenter who has been posting this much about it while breaking the site guidelines so frequently, even indiscriminately. This is not ok.

I hope it's clear from the fact that I've given you several extensive replies, trying to explain these things, that I don't want to ban you—partly because of the three factors I just mentioned—but you're making that a lot harder than it ought to be.

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