> And the response, "we're not trying to sell you a modem, we're just encouraging you to strongly consider buying a new one"
Making up quotes like this is against HN guidelines (and common decency).
Making up quotes like this is against HN guidelines (and common decency).
Moreover there's nothing in the guidelines about "making up quotes" (which again isn't a reasonable interpretation of what that is), whereas there are actual, explicit guidelines against addressing yourself to unreasonably interpreted versions of other people's comments.
You're right that it isn't explicitly mentioned in the site guidelines, but those aren't a list of proscribed behaviors but a set of values to internalize. I'd say "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize" covers this case pretty squarely.
And virtually anyone in any argument could insist, tediously, that those disagreeing with them have failed to interpret with sufficient charity.
But it's one thing to note that as a hypothetical possibility, and another entirely to point to something that's actually a clear cut offense. I don't think I twisted or misrepresented anything, and no one seems to be suggesting the anything was actually misrepresented or misinterpreted so much as they're using this occasion as a jumping off point to litigate the abstract principle. Which I don't think is a constructive use of anybody's time, which is why this is a bad norm that shouldn't be observed.
No, that is what I'm suggesting. Your comment reads as a quote. After reading it, I went to the linked page and looked around for the context. Turns out, there was no context for that quote, because it's not a quote, because those words aren't actually in the original text.
I'm asking whether, even a person who wasn't making a reasonable interpretation of what I was saying, would have been misled by the way I characterized Comcast's position. Is there a significant difference between the way I phrased Comcast's position on whether or not they were exhorting their customers to purchase a new modem, and the way they actually phrased it? Because I don't think there is.
You're spending a lot of time prosecuting this point, and requiring time to be spent by others who care about HN being better than other online communities.
Whether or not some hypothetical person not making a "reasonable interpretation" would have been misled, or whether it's reasonable that a reader had to spend time searching for the quote to verify it to realize that it was not actually a quote (and how many others would have bothered to do that), are matters that we could spend many more hours debating.
Or, you could just accept that it's better to refrain from misquoting people in future and we could all get on with our lives.
All it would have taken you was to preface the "quote" with something like "the response, which effectively amounts to saying...", and it would have saved everyone the bother.
C'mon, is this really a hill you want to die on? Maybe let it go :)
I got bit by this a bunch when I first got on HN; it was surprising to me how seriously it was taken. But it is, and it's not hard to work around.
If the object of the rule is to produce derails like this, it's doing more harm than good. So unless someone wants to explain how it's invocation in this thread improved the quality of conversation about Comcast's javascript injection policy, I would encourage others to join me in not observing the norm.
> The gist of the HN community's opinion is, "don't use quotation marks when paraphrasing."
> Lately the Democrats approach has been, "oppose Trump at every turn."
However, when paraphrasing a specific individual, it is frowned upon at best[1][2], and considered intentionally misleading at worst[3], to put paraphrases in quotes.
> pvg said, "I don't care what HN thinks, I'll do what I want."
> pvg continued with, "no one else cares what HN thinks either."
Contrast that with,
> pvg said that "only harcore lispers" care about how paraphrasing works.
In the last example, you can clearly tell the direct quote from the paraphrase. This is very important when communicating someone else's ideas.
Regardless of hard and fast "rules" of punctuation and grammar, you have a large number of people calling your writing misleading, confusing, and inaccurate. Clear communications should be the goal of any writing; wouldn't you be best served by hearing and incorporating this feedback?
[1] MLA: "Paraphrases and summaries do not use quotation marks" - http://www.lmu.edu/Assets/Academic+Affairs+Division/Academic...
[2] Purdue: "Indirect quotations are not exact wordings but rather rephrasings or summaries of another person's words. In this case, it is not necessary to use quotation marks" (note that no example of indirect quotations include quotation marks) - https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/01/
[3] "But then there's a long slide through confusion and bias into intentionally misleading quote-mangling and outright fabrication" - http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2013/10/17/gay_tal...
A lot of zeros and ones are being spilled on behalf of the abstract principle how quotes can be hypothetically used abused and interpreted, but none of the 40+ comments beneath my now-flagged paraphrase of Comcast's statement is actually arguing that my paraphrase was in any way distorting or misleading.
So I question the value of this norm, if the practical way it tangibly cashes out is in the form of extremely long derailments substantively unrelated to the the comment that caused the rule to be invoked.
It's just a dumb, arbitrary rule. It serves no purpose beyond facilitating righteous rebuke. You can make a better rule dealing with the underlying behaviour while oxygen deprived from screaming at dang about HN's political bias.
> not how writing or paraphrasing works anywhere else
That's simply false. If you want to use Reddit et al as your standard reference on the use of language and punctuation, have at it. But you can't reasonably expect every other forum to use that lowest common denominator. Railing against simple, longstanding house rules like this is just pointless contrarianism.
In terms of what contexts one should keep in mind when interpreting comments with good faith to come to a most reasonable interpretation of what they are saying, the way language is used on reddit is probably a much more reasonable benchmark than MLA style guides.
No, it isn't. I'm saying what somebody else is saying, in their voice. This goes in quotes, because it's someone else's speech, even if it's my version of their speech. The fact that they didn't actually say it comes from context. Punctuation is not semantic markup.
This doesn't come from reddit, it comes from, you know, the way people actually write. The fact that it requires repeated and lengthy explanations is a pretty decent indication it's not how anyone else writes.
Now, I think that it’s a fair argument that a web forum needn’t have the same formality as other written word, but your assertion that “it’s not how anyone writes” is clearly untrue.
And just as a single data point, I expect when someone uses quotes even on the web that they are asserting a verbatim quote.
I certainly default to assuming it does and in many contexts it is an explicit rule.
I don't understand how you've refuted that while also saying they sometimes don't. Are we arguing about contexts here? My claim is almost trivial - nobody reasonably familiar with English thinks quotes imply a verbatim quote. That's just not what quotes are for.
Getting back to the actual point, in formal writing, quotation marks are definitely considered to delimit actual quotes. That's where their name comes from and that's their purpose. If you want to paraphrase or otherwise interpret what was said you just work it in without quotes.
Personally, I relax my expectations in informal contexts if I don't know the person or their writing habits, but I'm just being pragmatic. In other words, the rule doesn't change, it's just not always followed.
That your position is that I’m in the minority on this is doubly surprising to me given that’s what all the style guides and my high school English teachers taught me.
"In English writing, quotation marks are placed in pairs around a word or phrase to indicate:
Quotation or direct speech: Carol said "Go ahead" when I asked her if the launcher was ready. Mention in another work of a title of a short or subsidiary work, like a chapter or episode: "Encounter at Farpoint" was the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Scare quotes used to mean "so-called" or to express irony: The "fresh" apples were full of worms."
Even 'direct speech' is at odds with 'verbatim quote' and that's the first thing there. Direct speech can be completely made up.
"AP, MLA & CMS" are an absurd counterpoint that falls well within 'that's not how anyone writes'. They are, if anything, lengthy exceptions to how anyone writes.
It's a deeply silly argument and my point is 'an internet messageboard should not be regulating punctuation'. It should, as this one usually does, try to regulate behaviour.
(For what it's worth: this little subthread is about 10x more interesting than the story and the rest of the thread it's attached to).
Don't be an ass.
Don't call other people asses.
Don't complain about votes.
And then:
Some weird thing about quotes we can't even sort out as well-intentioned nerds who love to talk about rules.
I don't think that's a good rule. I think what it's trying to address is probably a good rule. But it's addressing it in the dumbest possible way.
That's fine, when you're writing fiction. But in most online forums, fiction is frowned upon.
Still, it would have been clearer to say something like "Exactly. And the response, which amounts to 'we're not trying to sell you a modem, we're just encouraging you to strongly consider buying a new one', is such a hair-splittingly asinine response considering the rather serious breach of trust posed by the notification system."
Also, for what it's worth, I do agree 100% with your argument there :)
However, I think (1) few are as lucid as you on that particular point and (2) whatever the merits of this as a general debate, and I think there is some merit, I think the question is whether this norm improves conversation in a thread like this. I think it was invoked frivolously, spawned a long, 50+ comment chain, and it didn't clear up any of the confusion that it seems like the norm is supposed to be designed for.