| except that it can get you banned or harassed. I had deng(dang?) follow me around, and he (she?) was obviously prepping for a ban. At one point he wholesale deleted a comment of mine because it was widely misinterpreted in a sexist way (I clarified to multiple people, but it wasn't enough apparently). The sad part is the only ones being sexist were the ones interpreting it that way, I was personally shocked that so many people thought I was being sexist. And that was just the last time he stepped in, he had been threatening me repeatedly, and why? My best guess is either a) because I was having a conversation with another poster in which he came in and bitched at them, only I defended that poster, or
b) after I was "flag bombed" (I think that's the term?) for having an opinion many didn't like [1]. I'm not sure which because they were both a part of the same thread, but immediately after I started seeing deng everywhere, threatening me repeatedly. I've been online long enough to know what being targetted by a mod looks like. This idea that you shouldn't be self censoring on HN is naive. It means you haven't attracted deng's ire (or one of the other mods) or said something that was truly an "unsafe" minority opinion. There's apparently another person who won't allow linking from HN I believe? I don't know the full story behind that, but I can absolutely understand that person's opinion of HN. HN is honestly one of the oppressive environments for actual discourse I've seen and that's not a joke. The only site I can think of off the top of my head that's unequivocally worse is hubski.com. The poster who spoke about 4chan is spot on. You can optimize for good discussion or you can optimize for feel good politeness, but you can't optimize for both. Most communities attempt to balance it, but HN leans far to the side of feel good politeness. You don't actually come to HN for discussion, you come to HN to make comments on random things that pop up. Unfortunately, some mistake that for discussion, but I'm of the opinion those folks don't actually understand what a good discussion is. To end this post, I'm just going to say I find your opinion to be horrifically naive. Even now I know the reaction is going to be folks piling on to tell me how great a person deng is, and I'll find myself taking another multi-month long hiatus from HN until deng (once again) forgets about me. I've been online for entirely too long. [1] The poster I defended took issue with my opinion and we were going round and round about it and deng apparently thought he was getting too heated. I was the recipient of said "heat" and I disagreed. |