>You think that European founders and researchers are like "nah, you know what, we're European, we're not ambitious, we don't want to make money, to hell with equity"?
That's the copium HN thinks. European workers bust their asses for glory not for money.
We're getting complaints about several of your recent comments, and this is a prime example of the kind of comment that is not right for HN. It takes a swipe at the whole HN community (on the false pretence that the HN audience is concentrated via country/region or mindset), and makes a moral judgement based on region/culture.
We've asked you several times to stop commenting in this inflammatory style on HN. We don't want to ban you, as we want HN to be open to a broad range of views and discussion styles, but if you keep commenting in ways that break the guidelines and draw valid complaints from other community members, a ban will be the next step we'll have to take.
If you want HN to be a good place to engage in interesting discussions, please do your part to make it better not worse.
And there's countless like him that get away with it. You'll then argue that there's no resources to moderate everything on HN, which while true, it's also more than sus how there seems to always be enough resources to moderate conservative viewpoints but rarely attacks from liberals that break the same rules, which is a blatant double standard that HN moderation is ignoring.
You talk the talk about HN being to quote you "open to a broad range of views and discussion styles" but what you actually support is a suppression of free speech and a one sided view of things that can only exist in a biased heavily moderated echo chamber, and not in the free market place of ideas you claim to support.
That comment was posted barely a half hour ago and nobody has flagged it yet. What does it have to with "double standard moderation practices that are left unmoderated and even praised?"
We can't act on things that the community doesn't tell us about. Almost always, when people point to comments that are egregious but still live as evidence that the moderators approve of them, the reality is that we didn't see them. And a major reason for that is that political flamewar is now such a big part the activity on HN that our small team can't ever see all the comments that are flagged.
But please don't try to use other people's transgressions as an excuse for your own. That's an age-old trick that doesn't work well here.
If you are sincere about being a positive contributor to this community, you can easily show that by making an effort to observe the guidelines. You could also make good-faith efforts to hold other community members to high standards by flagging comments, and if you see anything that's particularly egregious, emailing us.
Edit: you added to your comment after I submitted mine, so I'll add a further response.
We don't care about what side you're arguing for. Often we don't know; we don't have time to figure out what each commentator in a flamewar is on about. The topic of bias has been hurled at HN for as long as it's existed. Dan has an ever-growing list of the complaints we get from each side characterising us as being biased towards the other side [1].
We have guidelines for a reason, which is that if people fill their comments with inflammatory rhetoric, the emotional energy that triggers is what dominates people's perception of the discussion, rather than the substance of the points people are trying to get across.
If you have points to make that have substance, and I know that you do, you need to find a way to get them across without being inflammatory, otherwise it's a waste of everyone's time.
>nobody has flagged it yet[..]We can't act on things that the community doesn't tell us about.
Why do you think that is? Is it not a reflection of the userbase bias? Where comments get flagged not based on rules but based on which political side they are targeting?
>You could also make good-faith efforts to hold other community members to high standards by flagging comments
Doesn't help when others vouch for them to support their ideology.
>We don't care about what side you're arguing for.
You don't, but your userbase does. And your moderation is based on what your userbase flags. So you moderation 100% reflects the bias of the community, hence the biased enforcement of your rules.
> Why do you think that is? Is it not a reflection of the userbase bias? Where comments get flagged not based on rules but based on which political side they are targeting?
That comment was a breach of the guidelines but it almost always takes longer than half an hour for a comment to be flagged, and for us to see it, especially on a thread that's over a day old that barely anybody is looking at anymore.
You could flag it yourself. The fact that you didn't makes it seem more like you're trying to prove a point about bias rather than doing your part to support the health of the community.
> Doesn't help when others vouch for them to support their ideology.
People who abuse vouching privileges can have those privileges revoked – if we know about it. Again, when you see this, email us.
The site has all kinds of mechanisms and norms to prevent abuse and dysfunction, but they can only work if people are sincere about making the site better rather than being at war with it.
These parts break the guidelines against assuming bad faith and fulminating:
Bad faith argument.
I've mostly seen change for the sake of change, wrapped in fluffy artsy BS jargon, making it sound like each UI change is the second coming of Christ and fixes world hunger.
They're not especially egregious but when you develop a reputation for breaking the guidelines, your comments are going to attract more flags, and also trigger more complaints made privately to us via email.
We received emails complaining about your comments, including this one, from people who have a good track record of supporting the community and not being politically partisan.
When we receive these kinds of complaints, nobody is complaining about your politics, just about your inflammatory style and guidelines breaches.
That's the copium HN thinks. European workers bust their asses for glory not for money.