Hacker News Reader

Comment by glenstein | Hacker News Reader

My "quote" isn't significantly different from what was actually said, in fact hews extremely closely to it, and is designed for rhetorical purpose of making clear how small a distinction is being relied upon in order to claim the statement is something other than a request for you to buy a new modem.

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.

View on HN

Making up a weaponized quote that's close to what was originally said is actually worse, because then it's harder for passers-by to tell apart and more injurious to the original statement. By 'weaponized' I mean altering it to sharpen the point for indignation or snark purposes. It's a harmful internet practice that we've asked to users to abstain from.

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.

How about to sharpen the point for brevity and clarity in order to convey a perfectly legitimate point? Arguing against something doesn't mean that you interpreted it uncharitably and doesn't merit the exaggerated description of being weaponized (and the comfort level with such exaggerations as "injurious" and "weaponized" is amusing in the context where the concern is about insufficient proximity between a statement and how that statement is subsequently characterized. There's a lot more distance between those adjectives and what I did than between the statement and my paraphrase of it.)

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.

> I don't think I twisted or misrepresented anything, and no one seems to be suggesting the anything was actually misrepresented

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.

You're talking about something slightly different than what I asked. You clearly were able to check and conclude that this wasn't a literal quote. There was no difficulty there. You apparently got stuck there, and were unable to proceed from that information to the conclusion that I was restating the position in an extremely similar but more concise form, which would have been a way of interpreting my statement in its most reasonable form.

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.

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.

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 :)

If you're rewording something someone else said, even if you're keeping it very close to the original words, don't use quotation marks. Quotes say "this is literally what was said".

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.

This rule is too idiosyncratic, annoying, not found anywhere in the guidelines, and is not offering any net benefit in this context that I can see.

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.

That's a weird HN-ism, though, not how writing or paraphrasing works anywhere else. The goal is understandable and laudable but 'redefining the meaning of quotes' is a thing only hardcore lispers can love.

I think you're missing an important distinction. When paraphrasing a group of people or stating a cultural zeitgeist, quotes are acceptable:

> 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...

Do you feel that my paraphrase was intentionally misleading, or even confusing, or innacurrate? Even unintentionally? Does anybody? Does anybody think the norm currently being debated yielded any actual tangible value in this thread? Did it save someone from misunderstanding Comcast's position?

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.

That exhaustingly (if not exhaustively) describes a number of important distinctions that never come up when some hapless commenter gets told off they're using quotes wrong. It's a Talmudic absurdity to apply to a message board. We don't have 70 comment threads about the proper use of "it's" vs "its", with MLA citations (which, it's worth recalling, "specifies guidelines for formatting manuscripts and using the English language in writing")

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.

This is not an "HN-ism". It is not proper to use quotation marks when paraphrasing. Doing so is explicitly attributing words to someone that they did not say.

> 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.

>If you want to use Reddit et al as your standard reference on the use of language and punctuation, have at it.

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.

That's simply false.

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.

Writing style guides are a thing & a thing that have been around for a long time. All 3 of the style guides I’ve had reason to use (AP, MLA & CMS) all require that quoted material be direct quotes.

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 agree with pvg. The notion that a comment on HN is, in some sense, in poor form because it doesn't adhere to AP/MLA/CMS specifications is ridiculous. Nobody agreed to that, and I doubt anyone would even agree that that's accepted informally as a norm.

I didn’t mean to imply that the web should follow those style guides (and said as much). I was refuting his claim that no one expects that quotes imply an assertion of verbatim quote.

I certainly default to assuming it does and in many contexts it is an explicit rule.

So you don't think that a comment thread like this one is a context where MLA guidelines would yield the most reasonable interpretation of what someone is saying?

I was refuting his claim that no one expects that quotes imply an assertion of verbatim quote.

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.

You said no one expects that and he pointed out the style guides do. So some people do. In addition to the style guides, a couple people here have said that they do as well (which is why we're arguing). I'm another. Regardless of whether the majority think this way, we can safely say that some people do.

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.

I guess I’m far out of the mainstream then. If you put quotes around something and attribute it to someone or some text, I assume you are asserting a verbatim quote, either in the context of web forums, business communications or more formal writing covered by a style guide. In the context of fiction, if you put quotes around something I assume it is to declare that the character is saying exactly what is quoted.

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.

I appreciate your good nature in taking the time to engage in this silliness but I have a hard time believing your high school teacher or anyone else taught you that. The wikipedia page on it:

"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.

Respectfully, I think you should read the Wikipedia entry for 'direct speech'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_speech

kasey_junk said "I'm a stupid moron with an ugly face and a big butt and a my butt smells and I like to kiss my own butt". Should this not include quotes, even though you didn't say it?

"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.

It should include those quotes if you are asserting that I said it.

The HN rule is never use quotes to say something someone didn't say. It seems, unless I'm misunderstanding you, you agree this is a silly rule.

I don't think that's the rule? I think the rule is if you're using quotes and it's ambiguous as to whether the person the quotes are attributed to actually said it, then the person better have actually said it.

(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).

That's as generous an interpretation of the rule as mine is overly literal. But it's worth comparing it to some of the other rules:

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.

It is also the case that this was something Paul Graham was idiosyncratically peevish about; at one point, he attempted a unified definition of trolling that amounted to "forcing one to rebut something they hadn't said" --- which obviously isn't the definition of trolling.

Yep, 'idiosyncratic' is a good way to summarize it. At the end of the day, it's just another dumb thing to yell at people about - it doesn't improve discourse or 'stimulate intellectual curiosity'. As an inveterate rule-yeller myself, the fewer of these the better.

Yes, but then you should include something like "might as well have said". Or "like".

> 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.

That's fine, when you're writing fiction. But in most online forums, fiction is frowned upon.

I don't think paraphrasing is limited to fiction any more than metaphor or hyperbole or idiom are. And those are in online forums all the durned time!

Sure, but it's polite to say when you're not quoting literally. Because that's the default expectation.

You don't need to fall back to a "default expectation" when usage is adequately indicated by context and by good faith efforts to interpret a statement in it's most reasonable form. Nobody confused it for a literal quote, nor did anybody feel it caused any misunderstanding, and those realities preempt any need to appeal to a default expectation.

In your case, I do agree that it was obviously not a literal quote. However, by the time I joined the thread, the topic had become more generalized.

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 :)

@mirmir: Point taken. In the context of this as a more general subject, I think your observation is perfectly reasonable.

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.

Yeah, they should probably put it in the guidelines. I just remember getting sniped by PG for using quotes that way.

What I'm getting at is, no, they shouldn't, nor should they expect anyone to adopt some weird made-up usage of standard punctuation. Perhaps they should put 'avoid paraphrasing as a rhetorical device' or something like it in the guidelines - that would make sense and be reasonably enforceable. "Don't use quotes the way everyone uses quotes" (like I just did) is just silly and ridiculous. You might as well put "don't call anyone a butthead without using the Oxford comma" in the guidelines.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com