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Comment by waffle_maniac | Hacker News Reader

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waffle_maniac

Don't you mean short it?

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He wants to become a shareholder so he can ask questions to the board.

Shareholders have additional rights.

Are you a shareholder when you short it? Can a non-shareholder make shareholder inquiries?

Not on a naked short.

A person shorting an equity (borrower) is not a shareholder, only the share lender is

> Are you a shareholder when you short it?

No, and it doesn’t matter if it’s naked or not. You borrow a share and then sell it. The person you sold it to has shareholder rights. The person you borrowed it from retains them, albeit in limited form. You have no shareholder rights as you are not a shareholder.

I'm shocked those questions were not read as rhetorical in response to ridiculous post.

You’re well-familiar with HN’s tendency to take the dry-literal interpretation path, I see :) It’s difficult to build productive conversation out of sarcasm and rhetoric, and the guidelines ask us to choose the most good-faith interpretation rather than the most obvious one.

Answering a question with a question is a time honored tradition. Just because it's rhetorical doesn't mean it was negative. If the person I responded to answered those questions for themselves, then it might lead them to realize how their question totally missed the point of the post they responded to. Teach a person to fish blah blah.

How would you differentiate between what you wrote, and someone genuinely asking the same question?

Context is key. It was quite obvious from the original post wanting to own shares specifically for what that would entitle them. Following that up with "don't you mean short it?" shows that the original point of the post was not understood. However, if you forget the above and focus on the one post, you lose site of the conversation.

Given that you have to infer meaning from context (which can be subjective; in this case, are you being snarky or not? (Not so, but there is ambiguity)), it is better to assume good faith in the question and respond directly. It lacks sophistication, but minimizes cross-talk as much as is feasible.

Turns out snark is not the clearest way to communicate.

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