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by Mao_Zedang 3300 days ago
I dont even know what meta-trolling is. The only definition I could find is this, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=metatroll I cant see how this applies, there is nothing in the rules about meta-trolling so I am only guessing at what you mean.

I also disagree with you and as you can see from the rest of the comments on this particular post also agree with me that Palmer Luckey was miss treated, I dont see how having an unpopular opinion (is it really unpopular?) is flamebait, it isnt even off topic, one could make the argument that this new venture luckey is involved in is a biproduct of exactly the kind of ostracisation he was subjected too.

As for asking for clarification of your accusation that I have "trolled" in the past, I am actually genuinely interested in which comment you are referring too, So I can avoid making the same mistake. If you think that is meta trolling, I guess I cant convince you otherwise.

1 comments

Ok, on the chance that you're sincere, I will try explaining this in detail.

You posted an inflammatory drive-by comment complete with gratutious Nazis (not literal Nazis of course, but in the same bucket). That's trolling: it destroys good conversation and provokes others into posting worse.

I explained this well enough for anyone who sincerely wants to use HN as intended to understand. Insead of taking that information in and adapting to it, you responded with the very most popular troll ploy in such situations, the "How is this trolling?" trick. That's where people seek to replace a pointless argument with a pointless argument about the pointless argument. I call that meta-trolling. Sorry the term wasn't clear.

I interpreted your reply as insincere because "a comment on exactly what happened" is such a silly misrepresentation of your original post. Posting something outrageous and then meekly playing innocent is more classic trollery. So is baiting people into wasting their time on obvious falsehoods. I've learned to decline the bait because all of this is so boring, and the overwhelming majority of sincere users don't do them, or drop them right away when we ask them to.

The past comment I was referring to was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12553831. It has the same combination of being unsubstantive and inflammatory. You post far too many of those to HN, though usually more unsubstantive than inflammatory, which is at least better than the other way around. That, plus what looks to me like sincerity in your reply here, makes me think that maybe we can convince you to use the site as intended after all; hence this long reply.

HN is intended for (a) the gratification of intellectual curiosity and (b) civil, substantive discussion. That means posting thoughtfully on topics where you have something meaningful to say, and otherwise not posting. Can you do that?

OK, thank you for replying, I understand the issue here, my comments are too terse and my language isnt clear enough to explain my intent behind them, and that comes off as trolling.

Instead of saying stassi, I should have explained how palmer was unfairly targeted by people in the tech scene and tech media in the valley who have what most people accept as a very left leaning bias. In an attempt to condense all of that in a single word I can see how that came off in the wrong way. And I can see how the comment from last year you linked too come off the same way, it was an attempt to highlight how science and religion are at odds and how the current political climate is making things like blasphemy laws more likely, and how the substance of the article in a society with blasphemy laws could be consider a hate crime.