> Bringing up someone's employer in the middle of a flamewar is a really bad idea
Guess I should have sent an email instead. In general I expect my posts to be understood as they are.
> Also, please don't do this sort of flamewar on HN to begin with
If you told me what exactly I said in the post that I should try to avoid from now I would appreciate it. I did not post anything with the intention of being flamewar-y, rather my posts were just sincere questions.
I agree with you that the turn into flamewar was not good, but please don't add personal swipes. That only makes the thread worse—and of course is certain to perpetuate the flamewar.
> on the theory that someone is flame warring in the comments.
... one mans flamewar seems to be another mans: it takes a few tries to explain this.
I'm find HN is very civilized. On other forums I see people talking about nuking entire counties, calling each other names etc all while posting under a full, real life names.
The thing that bugs me at HN (except interesting content disappearing like this post describes) is anonymous downvotes, - and mostly not because they hit me (usually they don't do : ) but because so often they are so obviously a result of political correctness and groupthink that it hurts.
> There’s an obvious trend as to which comments section I am mostly drawn to: ones with inflamed arguments.
I come here because of the value of some comments but this, above, as soon I can feel a flame wars starts, is the reason I stop immediately reading comments on a topic.
> Edit: I read your edit. It appears that in your mind, comments that disagree with you resemble a Twitter flame war, and comments agreeing with you are well articulated and thoughtful. In reality, your comments are just as negative and one-sided as the others you disparage.
Just the opposite, I welcome disagreement. I just don’t like being attacked without knowing why.
>I invite you to reread this thread and determine who derailed an enlightening discussion
I just did and it appears to be you. You are making 2 kinds of comments in this thread: 1) inflammatory comments that appear to be deliberately written to cause a derailing flamewar, and 2) comments accusing everyone else of making inflammatory comments written to cause a derailing flamewar.
> Please don’t hijaack this thread for another ideological flame war.
The very first post in this thread - paying the briefest of lip service to the article before the poster (with 6 out of 18 comments here, not one of which actually discusses the article) gets to what he really wants to talk about - is ideological flame bait, which you were happy to go along with and egg on.
So don't tell me, effecting the tone of a moderator, to do something you're unable to do yourself.
If you don't like me challenging fictional, completely politicized claims that poison virtually every thread like this these days, then take your own advice and read something else instead.
> Declaring my comment flamebait is telling. It's a completely banal observation about a conflict in someone's position. The many angry personal attacks (such as yours) are not my doing, and reflect on your own rather bizarre motivations.
Hm... I applied the label to the original comment I replied to, not yours.
But defaultname, I do see you're pretty new. Try not to take things personally; even me labeling their comment as flamebait is a description of the comment and style of discourse rather than an assertion about the person.
The goal in the end is to have quality discussion where we can all learn something and grow a bit, and none of that happens if we either attack each other or perceive each others' words as attacks.
For what it's worth, I do apologize if my words rubbed you the wrong way. Certainly wasn't my intent.
> How you raise a topic like this is by far the biggest influence on whether the conversation develops curiously.
An influence surely, but in my experience not at all the biggest. Curiosity is a two-way street, and there are some topics that most people here simply do not want to be curious about.
But yes, I’m mostly just spending karma fighting an info-war. Success in that context is not only about the quality of discussion, it’s that more people see the controversy. If the collateral damage is not acceptable I understand.
And if I end up getting kicked out, please just take to heart that your effort to apply the rules impartially is not unappreciated. The opposition here is used to receiving wildly-inflammatory escalating nasty replies that rarely get flagged or moderated, but it’s still better than most places: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25017661
Gee I wonder why.
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