[jeremy_arnold]

The offense was you intimating that I had bad motives when I simply wanted to centralize discussion and then link from one to the other (as I did). You clearly have no idea what it's like to manage replies at scale. People with bad faith engagement gum up the works, and that's unfair to everyone else, including me.

You've made your points. I've replied to all of them. Readers can judge.

[yuq34]

OK, I’ll judge: You sure enjoy explaining to others how to interact with you and expect everyone to abide by those rules, is my takeaway. Both from how you’ve interacted here across several comments, including being flagged off the site, and your origin story. Contempt when they do not is a strange look for someone doing day job comms for their own work, and it’s also poor form for HN.

Calling someone “butthurt” here used to invoke moderator action, as a direct point, but you’ve wormed your way in to the “can do whatever” club by having a Substack, I guess. It’s ironic how many rules you’re applying to others while overlooking those of this forum as a guest. Your comments are being flagged for a reason.

Also, Christ, it must be extremely tiring painting exact lines for other sapient individuals to follow and arguing with them if they don’t. Why not just roll with how things develop and try to be reasonable as best you can rather than hold the entire commenting public to your demands, which is plainly unsustainable? People are engaging with your work and you seem to be ... annoyed by that?

[jeremy_arnold]

There's a fundamental asymmetry here: many commenters vs. one of me. It's one big reason why most writers don't engage in comments at all. The time and energy burden is enormous.

As happens though, I think standing behind one's work is important, and that the investment is worthwhile on the net. So I engage more than most do, and I quite literally pay people when they help me see flaws in my work (or even just when they raise a really helpful point). This is good for all. But it's only sustainable when those on the other side engage in good faith. I told someone (who was already being super snarky) that I was centralizing their comments as they'd made the same one in two places. They responded with something deeply uncharitable. So I blocked them in one place but still addressed their concerns here (while linking readers from SS to here so they could follow). If that's not enough for you, lol ok.

As for butthurt, look, I've been on HN for a day. I don't know anything about the culture here. I don't even know what flags you're talking about or how to find them. No mods have gotten in touch with me about anything. If they did, I'd happily hear them out. But I'm never a dick to anyone who isn't a dick first, and even then I still try to engage in good faith if there's a real concern within their dump.

[kristofferR]

Where did you reply to the legality as morality argument you made?