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by charbonneau2 1666 days ago
> Single purpose accounts aren't allowed here

What's wrong with that? Some users really like to talk a lot about Java [1] and I am mainly interested in talking about the ongoing pandemic. HN offers a great format to have balanced discussions with a technical/science-oriented community. Additionally, it doesn't seem like COVID-19 topics are spamming/dominating the main page.

> and neither is using HN primarily for ideological battle

I started the thread to find out more about the current situation. One user replied with an article against vaccines. I tried to offer more context (i.e. defending the vaccines). In a different thread [2], a user underestimated the risks of vaccinating children and, again, I tried to balance it out (i.e. criticizing the vaccines). And sometimes, I just like to add a comment to confront the absurdities of today's governance [3]. Where am I primarily engaging in ideological battle?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Skinney (Just a random user)

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29111492

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29275781
1 comments
dang 1666 days ago
What's wrong with that is that such accounts are invariably agenda-driven rather than curiosity-driven, and that destroys what the site is supposed to be for.

Curiosity meanders in unpredictable directions, so there's basically zero overlap here.

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charbonneau2 1665 days ago
IMO, it's unfortunate that you see my comments/threads as invariably destructive & agenda-driven, essentially putting them on a level with this [1] (although that user wasn't banned). I'd be glad to continue the discussions about the pandemic. Your site, your decision.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29328994

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dang 1665 days ago
You can't get meaningful signal out of pointing to one bad comment like that. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). I've responded now.

Bad as that comment was, it's clear from the account history that there's no parallel between how they've been using HN and what we banned you for. I assume I explained the latter clearly enough, so I'm not sure why you would bring up a distraction like that.

Also, it's not in very good taste to point the finger at someone else when getting moderated. People do that all the time, of course, but it tends to be a signal that they don't really care about the values of the site.

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