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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

I understand the reaction, but this comment breaks at least two of the HN guidelines: the one that asks you not to snark, and this one: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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On the subject of snark, I am not sure that it is possible to police it fairly without removing value from the site. I am also not sure it is possible to police snark fairly in any circumstances, due to how nebulous a concept it actually is. Many of the figures this community puts on pedestals would have a very hard time conforming to the snark guideline. I reckon Fritz Zwicky would have lasted about a week.

I'm not sure it's possible to police anything fairly. But most internet snark is dreck and has a degrading effect, so we do what we can. Were it to take over HN, nobody interesting would stay here anyway.

It's a mistake to compare other contexts, such as writers or scientists sparring amongst themselves, to an internet forum. A large internet forum is a mile wide, an inch deep, and never far from a swamp. It has its own odd dynamic and needs to be managed accordingly.

>A large internet forum is a mile wide, an inch deep, and never far from a swamp.

Fair enough. That is a very good way of stating your predicament, I can't really fault it :)

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