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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

It's crossing into personal attack to imply that someone doesn't understand "the concept of humor" (or any other common concept). You went way beyond the information in the GP comment to step into that territory, and then you doubled down ("If isn't inherently obvious to you already").

Besides that, you don't need to go on about someone's putative lack of understanding in order to make your substantive points.

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Okay, but why aren't you giving my comment the most charitable interpretation and instead assuming the worst? You say to take the most charitable interpretation but don't do so yourself. Your words don't match your actions. You're being a hypocrite.

I fully believe you care and are trying. I also understand there will always be subjective ambiguity and that's fine. In the past we have disagreed and I have later come to acknowledge I was wrong. But if you keep pointing towards rules you don't live by yourself you're undermining the quality of this forum. And I acknowledge mistakes happen and that's fine. But it really feels different lately.

So if you truly care about the quality of HN, do yourself a favor and be more introspective with your moderation. Especially when you are the only person who believes I am being unruly here (as far as I can tell). I'm not saying this to attack you. I'm saying this as someone who has loved this forum for years but is worried about it getting worse.

Cheers.

The site guidelines don't ask people to take the "strongest plausible interpretation" (emphasis added). That's not quite the same thing. I didn't see a plausible interpretation of your comment that wasn't unduly personal—hence my reply.

Interpretation depends on past experiences and associations. Since everyone's are unique, no two people will always share the same interpretations. It gets worse when all we have are little bits of text to understand each other through. For example, if you had spoken those words and I had heard your tone of voice, it's quite possible I would have interpreted you differently.

On the other hand: you can't go strictly by intent, either, because intent is internal to the person whose intent it is. No one else has access to that (we're not mind readers) so the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate it.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

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

So my comment got upvotes from multiple people, a random person came by to tell you you're wrong about your judgment (and reaffirmed it when you questioned him), and yet there is no plausible interpretation of my comment not being harmful? Dan, you need to take a look in the mirror here. You don't seem interested in asking yourself "is it possible I'm wrong?" Actions speak louder than words. And once again, I think you should lead be example.

I give up. I assume you're just going to ban me anyway.

I did ask myself that! That's why I said "didn't", not "don't", and why I added the bit about tone of voice.

There's zero question of banning you for something like that.

Okay, I admit I'm frustrated but I can tell you're not trying to be harmful. I think I'll just let this one simmer for a bit.

For what it's worth, I really wasn't saying those things about HN out of pettiness or bitterness. Thank you for engaging with me. Cheers.

You're way off base here.

You think so? Having a sense of humor doesn't mean you get every joke. Telling someone they have no sense of humor, so it couldn't possibly be explained to them, is a kind of putdown. Elvis Costello was not being nice when he wrote this:

  If you don't know by now
  Nobody's gonna tell you
  If you don't know by now
  The shock would probably kill you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptnXM6rsxSY

Yes, I think you're taking a very uncharitable interpretation of the post.

In any case, I'll leave it here.

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