Show HN: Wow, a mod here threatened to BAN me for supporting Trump | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Wow, a mod here threatened to BAN me for supporting Trump

8 pointssmegel11 comments

> dang 1 day ago [-] > We need you to stop violating the HN guidelines like this if you don't want to be banned from commenting here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13527216

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You know, after a friend reminded me of Bill Clinton's blanket-firing of 93 US attorneys in the early days of his administration based solely on their Republican affiliation, I had a lot less sympathy for the firing of the acting AG due to her (in)actions (the subject in the above thread in question). So I can understand your sentiment.

However, let's call a spade a spade: your comment was crap.

If you had elaborated on why you thought that was "good", I think you'd likely have a case here. Though based upon what I've seen of the moderation here, I think you probably wouldn't have gotten the reprimand you did.

I consider myself a (mostly fiscal) conservative. I think HN has a left-leaning bias, which is no real surprise given its Californian roots. However, from what I've seen the moderators here have done a pretty good job of keeping things from getting wildly partisan.

The violation there seems to have been posting a substance-free "good" as the whole text of a comment, not "supporting Trump".

Just like the current guideline violation is a glaring violation of the "don't comment about downvotes" rule , not "supporting Trump".

EDIT: Actually, the current violation is of the rule: "Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to hn@ycombinator.com."

This is distinct from the "don't comment about downvotes" rule, though (as I see it) an expression of the same underlying principle.

Two points from the "In Comments" section: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

1. There is nothing on "substance-free".

2. Commenting "threatening to be banned from making comments" is not equivalent to "commenting about downvotes".

At least thats how I read that section.

I assume that comment was NOT edited afterwards and just said "good" from the start. (just mentioning because people do things like write offensive post, get complaints, edit to something trivial, then blame moderation just to start a flamewar) 1. It doesn't add anything to the discussion (just upvote the submission) 2. It's a flamebait comment.

I don't think you'd get any moderator complaints if you wrote some actual content (why it's good? why do you think the process worked correctly? what's the current process of who can double check who? etc.)

Look, I have no great love for the moderations policies of HN. The people who are mods are just people, and a lot of the things they do seem, and maybe are, whimsical and biased.

That said.

You posted a single (1) word reply to a submission--and it wasn't even a link you posted. You've got a lot of short, snippy comments on your record, and while I don't blame you for the tone in a lot of them, the fact is that if the mods say "hey, you aren't elevating the discussion here" they kinda have a point.

Well, maybe stop violating the HN guidelines. 'Most stories about politics' is the very first entry in off-topic discussion.

That sounds like a very selectively enforced guideline otherwise bans would be given out like trophy's at a tee-ball game.

Trophy's what?

I don't think there's a single Internet community that you can participate in that isn't mostly liberal in voice. If you want to get away from it, you have to visit explicitly conservative sites that revolve around conservative discussion.

Banning unpopular views hardly sounds liberal. Or does it?

There is no way your comment could be concieved as a violation of HN guidelines. You didn't submit the article and you didn't violate anything on the HN guideline list.

Humans are driven by emotions and we are no where near as rational as we'd like to think, but when it comes to politics this becomes especially pronounced. Dang just made a mistake here I'm sure he'll admit it.

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