[michaelochurch]

"Tone" opens up a very ugly discussion I don't want to have here.

I don't know if Paul Graham is at fault for this, just to be clear about it.

Let's say he were. If he came out and said, "This is my message board, and therefore I assign personal penalties to the posts of those who oppose my economic interests", I would respect that.

What I can't respect is a silent personal penalty. That's ridiculous.

I've had this suspicion for months-- and I didn't voice it at first, because I don't much care-- but it's the latency difference and the looking into position of historical posts that made the case strong.

Why is this important? Why is it interesting? Because if I am being personally penalized, that means that the establishment is threatened by people like me who speak the truth about it. That would be a really positive sign.

[nostrademons]

It is very common, in both software systems and real-life social systems, to have silent personal penalties. You don't generally want to tip off abusers that you're onto them, because they will frequently adjust their behavior in non-constructive ways if they're aware of that. Similarly, if people find you obnoxious in real life, they will generally not tell you, they'll simply refuse to associate with you. Nobody owes you feedback, and it's a drain on their time and emotional energy to try and explain why you've offended them.

In both these cases, your signal is that people are choosing not to associate with you. If nobody wants to hang around you, that's a good sign you're doing something that's objectionable to a lot of people. If some people do want to hang around you but others don't, treasure the friends you have and stop sweating the ones you don't.