[disgrunt]

> You've broken the site guidelines repeatedly and egregiously in this thread. We ban accounts that do that.

What guidelines have I "repeatedly and egregiously" broken in this thread? Was it the pointing out that a monetary gain is not a requirement for a conflict of interest? Was it where I asked the other poster if they thought Fauci had a duty of care to disclose his involvement in activities that some might see as a conflict of interest? Was it pointing out the fact that Fauci is the highest paid government official in the federal government (with citation)? Was it referencing and quoting Fauci's paper from 2012? Or was it me pointing out the other poster's bad faith responses to my comments (with the "Aw jeez")?

I've read the HN guidelines and this decision is not inline with them.

[dang]

No, it has to do with name-calling, flamebait, and generally posting in the flamewar style. It's perfectly possible to do all the things you mentioned without any of that.

Also, it's against HN's rules to use the site primarily for political battle, which you've obviously been doing, and we warned you about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25692385. Not cool.

[disgrunt]

That comment was four months ago. And it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Guess that qualifies as "repeated" in your book? Seems like a stretch.

What name did I call the other poster? I remarked that he appears to have a Fauci bromance, but that was after the "Aw jeez" sarcastic / flame bait comments. Prior to that I was commenting in good faith. And frankly, pointing out someone has a bromance for someone else after they've lavished praise upon that person in two separate comments does not name calling make. It's an observation, one that wasn't refuted by the other poster. Furthermore, despite being accused of having not read a paper because of a typo, I stuck to good faith commenting by quoting directly from said paper.

Can't help but notice I'm being banned for largely benign comments in a thread where I speculate about Fauci's conflict of interest. Comments other commenters expressed agreement. But the poster making sarcastic / bad faith comments who is defending Fauci gets off with a warning.

This conduct is your political battle, dang. Which is both not cool and, in my opinion, actively hurting debate on HN. HN would benefit from more balanced moderation.

[dang]

> What name did I call the other poster?

"You continue to sidestep and move goal posts. Ah jeez. You cling to an obvious typo instead of addressing my questions. Ah jeez. Your obvious (and frankly cringeworthy) Fauci bromance aside..." is filled with name-calling (pejorative 'you' language).

I must admit that you have a point, though: I shouldn't have said that you'd broken the site guidelines "repeatedly and egregiously in this thread". You may have broken them repeatedly, but when I looked back I only saw one comment that was egregious in this thread (the one I initially replied to). I'm sorry for the overstatement. I usually try to make sure my statements are strictly accurate, and that one wasn't, and I apologize.

It doesn't change the ban, because that wasn't the reason for banning you. As I explained, we ban accounts that use HN primarily for political/ideological battle. Surely you're not arguing that your account hasn't been doing that? It plainly has.

Everyone in this situation feels like we're only banning them because we secretly disagree with their politics, but the truth is that we do these bans regardless of what the account is battling for or against. We're trying to enforce the guidelines because the guidelines are the best blueprint we have for the kind of forum HN is supposed to be.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. That means using HN for curious, thoughtful conversation, not getting into flamewars, not trying to smite enemies, and so on.

[disgrunt]

The comment you quoted was in response to this:

> Did you even read that paper? I doesn't say what you are claiming at all. It says they're going to hold a conference to determine if it's worth the risks, and says they should continue the moratorium while they do more research. Ah jeez.

A bad faith comment ("did you even read your link?") followed by a sarcastic "Aw jeez". Sure, two wrongs don't make a right, but only one wrong is being banned. For rthe record, I don't think the other poster should be banned, either.

> It doesn't change the ban, because that wasn't the reason for banning you. As I explained, we ban accounts that use HN primarily for political/ideological battle. Surely you're not arguing that your account hasn't been doing that? It plainly has.

I used HN for debate. It is difficult, if not impossible to avoid treading into political/ideological realms. I've gone through your comment history and have found numerous examples of you entering into the political/ideological yourself. If you need examples, I'd be happy to provide some recent ones. But I brought more than political/ideological debate to HN, I also submitted scientific papers, recently declassified documents and other materials that (at least to me) were of interest. But that's not the point, the banning of all "political/ideological battles" is a shortsighted policy that will eventually render HN a dead sea where nothing interesting is discussed because no ideas can be openly challenged.

> Everyone in this situation feels like we're only banning them because we secretly disagree with their politics, but the truth is that we do these bans regardless of what the account is battling for or against. We're trying to enforce the guidelines because the guidelines are the best blueprint we have for the kind of forum HN is supposed to be.

Well, you had to go back four months for a previous guideline violation and my account is only six months old. Two strikes and I'm out I guess, and the previous violation was a throwaway comment that wasn't targeting anyone. Seems like I was on a list (of sorts) and this was as good an excuse as any to ban me. But banning posters for expressing political/ideological viewpoints is itself a political/ideological battle. The political/ideological views that survive on HN (and they do) are nested firmly in your political/ideological blindspots. Which is why I suggest a more balanced approach to moderation would ensure that at least this poorly thought out policy is applied more evenly.

> If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. That means using HN for curious, thoughtful conversation, not getting into flamewars, not trying to smite enemies, and so on.

No, that's ok. I think I brought considerably more good faith debate to HN than anything else. It may not have aligned with your political/ideological sensibilities, but there's little I can proactively do about that minefield. The "rules" won't save me here.