[pvg]

Arguable, but I don't think it's a slam dunk

The guideline is not that the form is not annoying - some people, like you, will find it annoying not matter what. It's that the complaints about it are boring, repetitive and corrosive to the forum just as any boring and repetitive thing is. That's very much a slam dunk of truth.

multimillenial standard interface for connected text

This is pretty ahistorical.

[aussiesnack]

> The guideline is not that the form is not annoying - some people, like you, will find it annoying

I'm not arguing that the guideline can be breached when some people find it annoying. That would be silly.

I'm arguing that posting articles as trains of social media posts may not be tangential nor merely a matter of formatting. If that's the case (I agree it's 'arguable'), then complaining about them isn't in breach of the guidelines.

> This is pretty ahistorical.

Claiming that posting multiple social media objects is a mere 'formatting' alteration to our legacy of textual culture is pretty ahistorical.

[pvg]

complaining about them isn't in breach of the guidelines.

It is, the guideline was written specifically to address the repetitive twitter complaints - you can find this explanation in the mod commentary. Also, pretty much anything repetitive runs counter to the rubric of the forum and this complaint is very, very repetitive.

our legacy of textual culture

Our 'legacy of textual culture' contains a huge variety of formats and representations. The notion that some single one is a representative standard, let alone has lasted for millennia is not an accurate one.

[aussiesnack]

> you can find this explanation in the mod commentary.

If the guidelines are unclear, and arbitrarily rule non-articles in as articles, then they must be rewritten to make the fiat clear.

> Our 'legacy of textual culture' contains a huge variety of formats and representations. The notion that some single one is a representative standard, let alone has lasted for millennia is not an accurate one.

Irrelevant, as no-one made that claim. Your unevidenced insistence on your personal take on a novel tech as inarguably part of a historical tradition is just quiet shouting. I disagree, but agree it's arguable. You think it's not arguable, because it's obvious to you, and you believe what's obvious to you should be enforced.

[pvg]

If the guidelines are unclear

Hence the clarification. Hopefully it's clear now.

no-one made that claim.

You made the claim - "the multimillenial standard interface for connected text". There's no such standard.

[aussiesnack]

> Hence the clarification. Hopefully it's clear now

Nope. Just that you personally rule something as tangential that I claim is not. Your personal preferences aren't present in the guidelines (I've read them). If you wish them to be so, please rewrite the guidelines.

> You made the claim

I did not. I claimed that there is such a thing as textual articles, ie. an existential claim. I didn't claim that all text, or all articles, or all textual articles, share a single format. They exist, and claiming that something entirely different (a chain of social media objects) falls under the same head is false. Claiming that two different categories of things are, in fact, different, is not 'tangential', or related only to 'formatting'.

[pvg]

Just that you personally rule something

Oh I see the problem. No, I'm not personally claiming this, I'm trying to explain the context and motivation of the site guidelines. Here are some relevant comments from the site moderator:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838162

and in endless glory:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

The guideline is there because of the repetitive twitter complaints, I'm not making this up as a fun messageboard hypothetical. Complaining about tweets being on twitter is a well-established off-topic topic.

please rewrite the guidelines

That is impractical for a number of reasons (i.e. the guidelines can't be exhaustive and also aren't, by design) which, coincidentally is also a subject of much moderator commentary. Happy to dig it up for you if interested.

I did not.

I mean, you talked about this millennial-something standard but there's obviously no such a standard. That's all. I'm happy to accept it as a rhetorical flourish and move on.

[aussiesnack]

As pvg won't permit a reply to his/her/its post, I'll reply to myself:

> The guideline is there because of the repetitive twitter complaints, I'm not making this > up as a fun messageboard hypothetical. Complaining about tweets being on twitter is a > well-established off-topic topic.

This is very obviously untrue. Almost every single thread in HN is littered with repetitive comments. Try posting anything about Linux, note-taking. Dare mention an Electron app, and if it's installed with an install.sh, then .. instant death. You'll be buried under an avalanche of near exact copies of comments that have been posted tens of thousands of times on HN.

This is manifest bad faith on the part of the mods in general or pvg in particular: an individual dislike on their part of this particular repetitive complaint, which prompted a vague guideline with plausible deniability in mind.

These aren't the kind of judiciously-applied guidelines I could willingly sign up to. Unfortunately we're not permitted to delete accounts here, so I'll remove my email address, log out, and stay out of the comments.