I agree about the commonly understood standards of discourse. With that in mind, it would be left up to the blog author to "opt in" by deciding to routinely grab their hacker news comments and integrate them into their own.
The comments are one of the best parts of HN and I think there must be few blogs that would want (and deserve) these discussions to be included with their original posts.
Sure okay but you do expect someone somewhere to debate you on it. That the forum ends up being hackernews isn't really significant to me visavis your opinion that some published writing could be free from debate.
> It sucks having to be careful about what you because of what other people will do with it, and the weird debates you'll be forced into as a result.
So are you a hacker news moderator? Your comment history seems filled with comments on other peoples comments. If so can your account be labelled as such? Does hacker news support this type of labelling?
Does it seem reasonable to you? Let me propose a scenario to you. Let's suppose that you commenting on Hacker News would mean that you must adequately respond to certain messages sent to you. If you don't do that then you can be fined. Does this sound like an environment that would encourage you to share your thoughts on Hacker News? Or does it sound more like an environment, where you would just not say anything and perhaps go elsewhere?
It's unreasonable, because it imposes an administrative cost on anyone that tries to do things on the side regardless whether they have good data handling practices or whether they have any intention of abusing the data. I would bet money on the fact, that JUST the fact that they must respond to a letter is enough to make some people go do something else. And who knows, maybe the side project could've been the next google.
I don't want to flag stories like this when they don't actually violate the terms of use. But IMHO, there should be some way for users to express the popular "Why is this on Hacker News?" sentiment without cluttering up the comment thread.
Otherwise, we'll just end up with upvoting cabals, and I'd argue that this story is likely to be a prime example of such.
I disagree with the tone with which yummyfajitas is discussing this, but I absolutely think he should have the right to voice his opinion. Aren't downvotes punishment enough? I wonder if he had been more cautious in his phrasing if his comments would still be dead-ed for picking the "wrong" side of an issue.
I see the direction that hacker news is going. Whether by mod or by algorithm, it ain't pretty.
Because Hacker News wants people to stand behind their comments. Lack of accountability is not a desirable feature if you're trying to encourage civilized discussion.
The same argument could be flipped on you! I believe you post a lot on Hacker News, but you don't own the code, servers, etc. You are a volunteer commenter. What if someone blocked and deleted all of your comments? Wouldn't you feel the slightest bit of loss?
FWIW, Hacker News doesn't pretend to be a general-information forum, and I think they're well within their rights (practically and morally) to shape conversation to meet the goals of the space.
This space has a published agenda and those who don't toe that line can go elsewhere; it's a very big Internet out there.
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