| > Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? Define unsubstantive comments and flamebait. Is this not unsubstantive flamebait? "What propaganda? That it would be nice if Britain wasn't being beaten in the supercomputing industry by a totalitarian dictatorship and warmongering dictatorship? As a Brit, I think it's just common sense rather than propaganda." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35067967 That's the definition of flamebait and propaganda. But it wasn't flagged. Why do you allow unsubstantive comments and flamebait while flagging every substantive comment that responds to and opposes flamebait? This comment I replied to dehumanized arabs by calling them extremists and barbarians. "I don't know much about Israel or the politics, but just want to say I deeply admire the country. A shining light of democracy, technological progress, innovation, and prosperity in the midst of many countries ruled by dictators and extremist barbarians more concerned with infighting and grandstanding than the progress of their people." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34997427 Who did you flag? You flagged me and let this bigot alone. It was only after days of complaints that you finally flagged him. Did you give him a warning? Of course not. You wrote "As for anti-Semitic comments, I've personally banned plenty of accounts for posting like that." You do realize that arabs are semites. How come you haven't banned boeingUH60 for his antisemitism? Or is antisemitism directed against arabs okay? > We don't really care about your views on the underlying topics No you do. Anyone who reads my flagged comments and the comments I replied to can see it. You can say all kinds of nasty shit about russians, chinese, arabs, indians, etc but that's not flamebait. It's only flamebait when you defend them. So I'll keep fighting flamebait til you learn to do your job better. In the meantime I share your concern about unsubstantive comments and flamebait and will do my best to deal with them accordingly. Edit: You forgot to flag another of boeingUH60's flamebait in the same thread. You couldn't be bothered to read the thread to flag his responses? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35003295 |
That said, other people's behavior doesn't change the moderation response to your own account. It's just like when the cops pull you (or me, at least) over for speeding—it's always annoying because you know that other people were speeding much worse. Why didn't they get a ticket instead? The answer, in both cases, is simple if unsatisfying: it's just random. We need you to follow the rules regardless of what other accounts are doing. If they're breaking the rules repeatedly, they'll eventually get "pulled over" and dealt with too.
In case it helps, I have scolded and banned countless accounts for posting "nasty shit about russians, chinese, arabs, indians, etc" - that's totally not cool regardless of which population someone has a problem with. If you're trying to stand up for minority populations on HN, we're on your side in that respect. You can see a bit of the long history that I have with this dynamic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod. It's the same for other populations.
But you simply can't do it by flouting the rules. I know it's almost impossible not to be angry when encountering the double standards and one-sidedness that circulate around these issues, but if you try to defend against it with snark, flamewar, fulmination, and so on, it only makes things worse, and you put us in a position where we're forced to moderate you regardless of how right you are. It may not be fair, but it's inevitable.
I've written many past explanations about this in case any of it is helpful:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...