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I responded to you twice already after posting the moderation reply. It's not possible to keep every conversation going—that's nothing personal, nor a function of the topic. It's a function of the unmanageable quantity of material that needs responding to. I wish I could satisfy everyone who wants personal attention and detailed replies, but I only have one me and it's physically impossible. The comments you linked to were unsubstantive and provocative but I don't think they crossed the line at which we would moderate comments, and I don't think they violated the rules nearly as badly as you did in this thread, and also the other commenters who I banned in this thread, who were on the opposite side of the fight from you—which btw led someone else to accuse us of moderating HN in your side's favor. Everyone always thinks the mods are siding with their opponents. In reality we're just siding with HN's rules and trying to prevent the forum from destroying itself. It's true that you're in a different situation, because your view is a minority one in this forum. HN is a highly international site but it's definitely majority-Western and that means Western views, Western reports, and Western media are the main things represented here. People in minority situations often get so frustrated that they lash out, break the rules, and behave so aggressively that we end up having no choice but to ban them. At that point they usually feel that they've been banned because of their minority views—but that's not so*. It's because they've been breaking the rules, often very badly and frequently. The solution would be to represent your minority views respectfully, understanding that you're talking to a majority that has vastly different assumptions and can't easily relate to what you're saying, and to take responsibility yourself for bridging the gap. It's true that that puts extra pressure on the minority, and arguably that's unfair, but it's still in your interest to take that responsibility. If you don't, i.e. if you lose your cool, lash out bitterly and so on, all you do is give the majority a fresh reason to be sure of their own correctness. You become the 'bad' one confirming the righteousness of the 'good' ones, who of course don't notice when they themselves behave badly. p.s. before someone accuses me of taking the wrong side in this war: I've been making this argument for many years to users representing any minority view on HN, on a wide range of topics. * (We try to protect minorities here, of all sorts, on all topics—not because we agree with them but because it's better for the forum to have a diverse range of views represented.) |
Seriously?
Where have I written anything worse than "The lengths this guy will go to, to deny his country's ethno-fascist roots. Russian-exceptionalism is a hard drug to come down from." as a reply by jevgeni's to the string of my "thoughtful and substantive comments"? [0] And I'm here assuming ignorance on part of 'marshray', not hate speech.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32909607