" Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Secondly, there is no debate here. I am merely witnessing the equivalent of a person screaming uncontrollably for no reason at an intersection in a big city.
I did talk about why you (and only you, a user with 239 karma, less than a quarter of mine) called me a troll - it's because you don't understand our guidelines and civil discourse. This style of discourse is frowned upon by this community and YC employs a full-time moderator (dang) just to make sure nobody like you is doing this where anyone is reading. He and others are doing a really good job, and you won't see a single comment like yours in any thread.
If you have any questions about the comments I actually made you can write politely to yc tech mgr @ gmail.com
How on earth does anyone think this is trolling? Anyway, I disagree with your points.
1) There is a very big difference between a heated argument and an argument. Maybe it's just a side effect of the medium we are using, but everyone seems to have so much trouble being civil. For example, instead of suggesting that OP go look to North Korea, you could have said "For me, the heated discussions are a good thing" or something similar.
2) OP realizes that HN isn't a technical forum, and isn't asking for it to change.
3) Comments are a massive part of the value that HN provides, and even if OP were to stop reading the comments, he'll still see the same mix of articles on the front page.
The part that you seem to be missing is in this guideline: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Part of what "thoughtful" means is taking into account how your posts might be landing with others, especially those on the other side of divides like this one.
Perhaps you weren't trolling intentionally, but you made the quality of this already divisive thread far lower in the two ways that aren't ok here: unsubstantiveness and incivility. You've also done this before.
OK, but please do not post unsubstantive or flamebait comments here, and especially not name-calling or personal attacks. That's what used to be called trolling. It maybe still is, but it used to be as well.
I'm willing to grant you the benefit of the doubt when you say that you are not intentionally trolling, but I respectfully submit that that is what you come across as.
Starting highly charged political threads on topics that are only tangentially related to the linked article does not contribute value to the discussion.
I've noticed for myself that one of the signs that I am spending too much time in front of a computer is that I get into emotional arguments on internet message boards or IRC. It's easy to forget that a level of emotional involvement that would be normal and healthy IRL can make you seem like a raving lunatic online.
Take that as you will. I am through with this thread.
It may not be "trolling", but it definitely violates the spirit of the HN guidelines[0] (somehow hitting 3 out of 4 of the first comment guidelines -- failing the kindness test, snarkiness test, and editing out swipes test).
The comment OP called trolling would be much stronger and more interesting if it posted a "credible rebuttal" instead of being snarky and rude. If that hits an issue with the bullshit asymmetry principle[1] for you, downvote and move on with your life.
I have no idea, but it doesn't matter, in the sense that it's simpler than that. You can't post the way you did, even if you were being trolled. This is in the site guidelines: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." That's an indirect phrasing of "please don't feed the trolls".
Commenters here need to follow the rules regardless of what others are doing. It always feels like the other person started it and did worse, which is to say: it always feels like we're justified in breaking the rules. If we go with that feeling, we're guaranteed a downward spiral. The only solution is to inhibit that feeling and hold yourself to a higher standard. Maybe the other person doesn't deserve better (certainly not if they were trolling), but that's not why we
do it. You do it because the community deserves better and it's in your interest to have a functioning community here.
(I can tell you from experience, though, that most of the time that it seems like someone is trolling, that's a misperception, in the sense that they had no such conscious intention.)
Right, I'm using the word "trollish" in the sense of the effects the post had. That's the only thing that can be observed and the only thing that matters for moderation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... (I was careful not to call you a troll; this is about posts, not persons.)
"Asking people for introspection" is a skewed way of describing your original comment. If that was your intention, you should go about it in some way that isn't guaranteed to start a flamewar. I don't think these "allergies" are in any way obscure.
Ditto for "very benign opinions". If that was your intention, you should not be breaking the site guidelines.
Edit: I realized that it might be helpful if I mentioned the other aspect of why I posted what I did. You have a long history of breaking the site guidelines. We've asked you many times to stop that. If this weren't a longstanding pattern I'd probably have reacted differently, but it is a longstanding pattern, so please fix it.
"What we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative—comments that are mere name-calling."
Please engage with the substance of comments rather than accusing others of trolling.
It was indeed a provocative comment given the unfortunate HN zeitgeist on torrenting and piracy, but accusations of being a 'troll' are overly negative and insulting.
We've already asked you not to troll, so could you please stop? The difference between trolling and discussing is whether or not you've met the bar of information over provocation.
You are called troll because of stupid statements on basic points.
You refuse to talk about WHY you are stamped a troll in multiple comments -- instead you complain in big blocks of text about impoliteness!
This is a common troll strategy, but does it really work?
Do a causal reader miss that you refuse to talk about why you are called troll -- and just see two people complaining about each others?
Edit: So your smoke screen of complaints will change my behavior. :-) The next troll with your strategy will just get a note that he refuses to touch why he is called troll + link.
If you are not open to discussing any ideas except asserting your opposing view of mine, then who’s the troll?
What you are doing is the very behavior that makes HN a toxic place and why so many end up avoiding discussion
You can’t control your emotions regarding an online conversation so you lash out and have a meltdown like a toddler, blindly downvoting someone that won’t agree with you
Please, everyone stop this back-and-forth nonsense. It's trolling and troll-feeding in effect regardless of intention and it has no business on a site where we want the chance to actually learn something.
" Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Secondly, there is no debate here. I am merely witnessing the equivalent of a person screaming uncontrollably for no reason at an intersection in a big city.
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