Comment by maxbond | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxbond | Hacker News Reader

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I actually tried to respond to it but it was flagged before I finished typing. I have several comments in this thread that are critical of them.

I'm not defending their insults, but I take issue with you responding to them in an inflammatory way. It's not okay to stir someone into a temper, and then when they react badly, weaponize that against them.

Someone behaving badly in conversation is not license to treat them badly. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

My suggestion to you would be to flag insulting comments and move on rather than trying to be hurtful to someone who was hurtful to you. As a personal rule I try to respond respectfully or not at all. I don't always succeed at this. When I don't succeed I find I make an fool of myself and end up saying something dumb.

Honestly I think that's pretty much what happened here - your first comment in this thread has insulting undertones, the other commenter took the bait, and they came out not looking so good. You took advantage of their overreaction to further insult them, and in my eyes you look like a jerk and a bully. But I bet you don't treat people that way in general, and that it isn't compatible with how you see yourself and the reputation you'd like to cultivate.

When somebody bursts into a normal thread like Kramer from Seinfeld and starts spouting genuinely odd, angry and fully off-topic nonsense, I see no issue with pointing out the fact that that behavior is in fact childish to the point of being comical.

How many paragraphs were you prepared to write to admonish that poster? This bit of policing is kind of strange to me.

My genuine feedback to you: Your very detailed analysis of my posts was not asked for, and calling me a jerk and a bully is not going to engender a working conversation between us in the same way that if I said “holier-than-thou backseat moderator” wouldn’t encourage you to engage in a real dialogue either.

Respectfully, in the future please try to curtail your impulse to impose your personal rules on me. I am not open to your coaching. Any further criticism of me is wholly unwelcome, will not be applied, and I’ll just have to ignore our respond to it in the same way I decide how to engage with any other pointless off-topic emotional nonsense.

I'm sorry if what I said bothered you. I will stick to responding to your criticism of me, and not include any further criticism of you in this response.

I don't think I'm better or holier than you, I regularly fail to live up to what I'm suggesting. I'm not trying to impose anything on you; everything I said was a suggestion, and I interpreted your offering me advice as an invitation to offer advice in return.

Much like you feel you have license to tell people they are being childish when you judge it appropriate, I feel I have license to tell people they are being rude when I judge it appropriate. Both of us are expressing our view of how people should behave in this community, "back seat moderating" if you will.

Thank you for your feedback. Have a great rest of your day.

> Let's not be mock people when they say stuff out of frustration.

The first thing you said to me was a condescending command. lol at “inviting advice in return”

Buddy you showed up to backseat mod in the first place. I’ve just asked you to personally leave me alone with the (from my perspective) kind of silly decorum police nonsense. I did not come out of nowhere and tell you how to interact with other people. That’s kind of a significant difference.

"Let's not" is a suggestion, not a command. I chose "let's" for that reason specifically.

I don't see why you feel it's condescending to ask you not to mock people, and I'm sorry you feel patronized - but you told someone you'd "laugh in their face" and called both of us "buddy". You're being condescending on purpose because you feel it's warranted - you said as much ("I see no issue with pointing out the fact that that behavior is in fact childish to the point of being comical").

You're free to say whatever you please, but I don't see why a different standard applies to me. The same goes for "lol at advice in return" - it's not clear to me why you think the notion that I might respond in kind is laughable. For that matter, that also goes for your criticism that I'm sharing thoughts in a way that's not conducive to productive conversation - was laughing in their face conducive?

You "came out of nowhere" to tell this person you had a problem with the way they were interacting with the forum as much as I did. No one gets invitations here, we all come out of nowhere. Again, I don't understand why there should be a different standard.

The real difference here is that we view our own behavior as justified and each other's behavior as excessive. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

> "Let's not" is a suggestion,

No it isn’t, it’s a command dressed up in lazy condescension.

Lol, again, buddy, this is super silly to the point of being sincerely comical!

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