Comment by 2scary2reply | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 2scary2reply | Hacker News Reader

There was a comment here previously by [redacted] which said:

"There are just so many pieces that almost neatly fit together - it's gross. Too many coincidences to just hand-wave away.

More context: https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/

Their reaction to this article specifically: https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5e8lg7/the_nyt_j....

Insane ramblings of paint-huffers? Or people who maybe saw something they shouldn't?"

They deleted their comment - I guess they were getting too many downvotes. But I created this account to reply, so screw it:

How can anyone ever disprove a conspiracy theory like that? It's impossible.

I saw in passing an interview with someone who thought that Hillary was ordering child abuse victims using "Pizza" as a code word. I never actually realized it was a serious accusation.

"False news" isn't the issue. It's people are completely unable to evaluate how likely something is in any meaningful way if that person is on the opposite side of politics.

Hey, if a user deleted their comment, that's their prerogative and it's unfair to override that without their permission. People here need to treat each other better than on the internet at large, or what sort of a community are we?

It's extremely rare that we'd edit a comment but I don't think you have property rights over this one, so I'm going to redact the username you put in there and ask you not to do this again.

Something I've wanted to ask, then... Why is there a relatively short cutoff period for deleting one of your own comments?

The window is 2 hours, same as for editing.

HN threads are collaborations; comments aren't just individual property. Active threads develop quickly in response to existing posts, and editing/deleting earlier comments removes context that the later ones are based on. The longer the time window, the more likely that later comments will get invalidated and/or history rewritten. So we need an edit window that's long enough for people to refine their comment or have second thoughts about it, but brief enough not to pull the rug out from others.

We're happy to delete comments or sometimes even edit them after the fact if people have a good reason for needing that (e.g. they're worried about getting in trouble from something they posted). But we only do that in response to specific requests about specific links. We don't delete history wholesale.

> How can anyone ever disprove a conspiracy theory like that? It's impossible.

Indeed, you cannot. To even address it directly gives it credence and power. It is so absolutely asininely absurd as to warrant complete disregard.

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