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Comment by slumpt_ | Hacker News Reader

“petty drama” speaks volumes.

Edit:Please, downvote. Just reinforces my point.

What is wrong with this community, jfc

FWIW, I think that was probably because your comment was unsubstantive enough that it was unclear what you meant, which probably put it in a worst-case situation. Also, unsubstantiveness attracts downvotes in its own right, especially when it contains traces of snark. Also, your account has quite a history of posting unsubstantive comments—could you please not do that? We're trying for something different here.

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

We can set aside my history and focus on the simple point being made: labeling this issue as "petty drama" speaks volumes. It speaks volumes about you and the values you are espousing for this site and community, and reflects poorly upon YCombinator as an establishment in general.

In early March we were at a point in a global pandemic where vaccines were hard to come by in the US and real lives were at risk and changed by receipt of the vaccine.

That it is simply "petty drama" that someone is calling out the community for ejecting him over being repulsed by behavior that seeks to sidestep a good-faith system intent on helping those most at risk first is disgusting.

How's that. Is that substantive? I figured it was between the lines.

I don't think it's "petty" (to use dang's wording) because the underlying issue ("cheating" to get a vaccine) is petty. You're right - the underlying issue is serious.

It's "petty" because the discussion isn't about the underlying issue, the discussions is about someone claiming that they were kicked out of YC for posting to Twitter about someone else posting about skipping the line to a separate internal forum. That's very far removed from the underlying issue of vaccines, and brings in so many other topics into play, many of which are just not best reasoned about in this kind of forum (e.g. is the tweeter telling the truth? If they are, was it ok that they publicly tweeted about something from an internal forum? Did they first approach the original posted? etc.)

Much as you or I might like the discussion to be "Does YC condone lying/cheating to get the vaccine early", that's just not the topic we can actually answer here, since we have no access to the real underlying facts (and probably only one side speaking).

That is what to my mind makes this issue "petty", not the seriousness of the subject matter.

By the time something goes through this many twitterfilters, whatever non-petty quality it may have had to begin with has long been boiled away. It has become a self-licking ice cream cone of internet drama—something that certainly deserves the word 'petty'. Moreover, there was a long history of pettiness preceding this.

We can't set aside your history because (a) you've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly and (b) we've asked you repeatedly not to do that in the past. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Yeah, I understand you don't want to set it aside in general which is fine. I was only requesting you set it aside to entertain what I was saying in the above comment.

And sure, happy to review the guidelines, all prior points aside.

Though to be clear, the problems of this community go deep when a moderator is dismissing this kind of serious issue as petty drama.

Ah ok—I get your first point now and I respect that you disagree on the second. Thanks for the kind reply.

> “petty drama” speaks volumes

Big time agree here. The comment was substantive and succinct. Saying it was “petty drama” in the top comment sets a tone for the convo.

>Saying it was “petty drama” in the top comment sets a tone for the convo.

Top comment is the top comment because it was voted to the top. One doesn't say anything in a top comment; one says something in a comment which may become the top comment.

'dang may have pinned the comment to the top to make clear that he had changed the submitted title to the tweet and be open that he had done so. From what I've observed, pinning comments in this case isn't uncommon.

Edit to add: as 'Nicksil kindly pointed out, 'dang made clear he didn't do this in this case.

>'dang may have pinned the comment to the top to make clear that he had changed the submitted title to the tweet and be open that he had done so.

But he hadn't as was said in this very thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27401409

Ah, cheers! I stand corrected.

Any post that challenges dang will likely get voted down. This is normal given his position and it's the price of admission (see my other reply to his post). People also rarely vote on how substantive your post is but on whether they agree with it or not. It's not in the spirit of HN to do this but you really can't control human behavior and people do this without being fully aware of it.

Due to how human voting behavior sort of deviates from the spirit of HN, it's a good excuse to have some people moderate the site as having an emotional mob control everything could have the entire site turn into reddit. The problem is the people moderating the site are also human and also victims of their own biases and business interests so you get hella sketchy stuff like this pinned post.

Still it's sorta good that this post wasn't outright deleted.

> "Any post that challenges dang will likely get voted down."

While this may be the case, the comment you reply to is a particularly poor example on which to hang this comment. It's a snarky, insubstantive insinuation, regardless of whom it's in response to, and was edited to complain about downvotes.

> "Still it's sorta good that this post wasn't outright deleted."

It's likely it wasn't flagged and removed because it was in response to 'dang, as he is generally leaves responses to his comments in place even when they're quite bad, even if he doesn't follow-up with a reply in what I take to be added transparency.

Oh don't worry, not complaining about downvotes. Just baffled that the community stands by that characterization of the issue at hand. Plays into crummy stereotypes about the tech community and their general naivety regarding social issues / norms (or perhaps worse, apathy?).

It's neither snarky nor insubstantive. It gets straight to the heart of the issue in few words. It does speak volumes. Few words can given context and choice.

The thread is a shitshow of bluster, vague accusations, mob down voting and carefully selected facts on both sides but it's interesting that it is still possible to piece together what actually happened by reading a selection of the comments from both sides.

My impression is that one side is slightly more keen on obscuring the full facts than the other without outright giving the impression that that is what they are doing.

It's good it wasn't deleted, but disappointing that he winds up editorializing it with his quip.

I've come to not expect much more from HackerNews. Sometimes http://n-gate.com/ is the best summary one can ask for.

Wow, that's certainly a faster way to read HN! :-D

Thanks!

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