[dang]

You broke the site guidelines egregiously with this (and also with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35233124 - we can't have users attacking other users based on where they're from). I actually did ban you, but changed my mind after I looked through your comment history and didn't see you having made a habit of this.

You can't do this here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are, and the site guidelines are quite clear about it. No more of this, please.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

[mechanical_bear]

I understand what you are saying.

My only comment on that matter would be that one need not reside in any particular location to work for the CCP, they have workers all over the world, from many different backgrounds. I wasn’t implying that he/she was of any particular ethnicity, race, or nationality - not have I denigrated such. To further that point, I then asked where they were from to gain perspective on their comments, there was nothing insulting meant in my asking. (I actually meant to go back and change the accusation of working for CCP comment, and overlooked it.) However, it did seem like they were a new account, with comments not made in good faith (imo), and they were pushing a distinct CCP narrative that I see often in my research in this topic.

Thank you for taking a balanced hand to moderation here. I understand it can’t be easy.

[dang]

The relevant HN guideline covers that case:

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email [e-mail] and we'll look at the data."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Internet users are far too quick to accuse others of manipulation/astroturfing/etc.* When we dig into the data we nearly always find that someone is simply posting from a different background than the majority here. Different backgrounds lead people to have different views. No doubt there does exist conscious manipulation and abuse; but the dangers of mob effects coming from users who feel like they're seeing that, and then gang up on someone who actually is just coming from a different background, are much more of a threat to the community.

* I mean on political/ideological questions and the like; user intuition tends to be more accurate when it comes to people promoting products and so on - though the two bleed together in the case of big corps and that's a separate thing again.

[mechanical_bear]

Rgr. Thanks again for the balanced moderation.