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Comment by almostgotcaught | Hacker News Reader

> All we can do is respond to the bad stuff we see, which we can only do if people use the site's feedback mechanisms to alert us to things that need our intervention.

....

> Of those comments, one of them would be killed by now if you'd just used the site's functionality as intended and flagged it.

Am I taking crazy pills? I directly linked you to both comments, you concede one of them crossed a line, and yet this morning I wake up and they're both still live simply because I didn't hit a specific button?

And no I'm not gonna hit the button. Because my point isn't actually about political bias or whatever - it's that you people are weirdo hall monitors that tone police instead of actually encourage discourse (as I've said many times now in this thread, despite your claims that I'm complaining about bias).

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It's not about tone it's about substance. When your comments are all laced with indignation, the substance is lost. I'm actually pleading with you to engage in discourse here. I'm telling you that I (and, evidently, many others in this community), aren't expert enough in this specific topic to see how these comments are so egregious (rather than just wrong, which is not a guidelines breach). I did some enquiries of my own about the topics, and sure, I picked up some further details. But that's not enough to me to unilaterally kill these comments, and after all that's not the point. You're expecting us to moderate a particular way about topics you have particular knowledge about and particularly strong feelings about. That's not something we can ever do, no matter the topic or the side. This is a perfect example of why it matters to optimise for substance over indignation. You could simply respond with opposing evidence, and educate other readers, me included. That's what we most want here.

> You're expecting us to moderate a particular way about topics you have particular knowledge about and particularly strong feelings about. That's not something we can ever do, no matter the topic or the side. This is a perfect example of why it matters to optimise for substance over indignation.

This is such a weird false-dichotomy you're portraying. No one is expecting you to weigh in on arcane/abstruse things. This is about a current holiday in America that commemorates freeing of slaves ~150 years ago, not slavery in the Mycenaean civilization of 1100BCE.

You said you're not American - ok then maybe you should've stayed out of the thread entirely? But since you didn't, then you should realize it is your responsibility to educate yourself. Like just plain and simple: can you imagine a police officer policing a foreign people being unaware of their history/culture/etc?

Like can you imagine the same thread about mistreatment of aboriginals in AU - would you similarly blithely claim ignorance? Indifference?

What I keep saying is that my job is not to adjudicate on content correctness, it's to uphold the guidelines, and the guidelines are designed to optimise discussions for substance and avoid ragey flamewars.

The whole reason we're having this discussion is that you expressed your points – which I acknowledged were valid and valuable – in inflammatory ways. And ever since you've been rejecting my appeals to you to avoid inflammatory commenting, by claiming that other comments are so egregious that the guidelines shouldn't apply to you.

I'm telling you that it's not obvious how those comments are so egregious. Other community members haven't called them out as egregious. They didn't set off flamewars. I've acknowledged that dog-whistles exist and sometimes comments can be egregious in ways that aren't immediately obvious, and asked for you to explain how these ones are egregious, and you keep refusing. I'm not going to be goaded or shamed into acting on comments on the basis that "it should be obvious". We can't operate a site like that.

The egregiousness of other comments doesn't excuse you from observing the guidelines. That's a very well established norm here.

> by claiming that other comments are so egregious that the guidelines shouldn't apply to you.

no man i keep claiming the same thing over and over: that you have done nothing about any other comment in this thread except mine. i've literally said this same thing like 5 times. and what's happening is you keep reasserting some kind of lattitude to ignore them.

> I'm not going to be goaded or shamed into acting on comments on the basis that "it should be obvious". We can't operate a site like that.

you can't have your cake and eat it too: if my comments are obvious enough given a particular value system that you can scold and censure me, then there can be plenty of others that are just as obvious.

edit:

> rather than insisting that you are above the guidelines... take responsibility for your own conduct

please point out for me (by using links) where i didn't "take responsibility"? at multiple points i admitted to being sarcastic/flippant. how would you like me to further take responsibility? would you like me to apologize to those people? would you like me to delete my comment so that they continue fly under the radar? would you like me to commit hari-kari?

You are only being held to account according to the guidelines, which apply equally to everyone. I'm telling you that I'm willing to act on other comments when it's clear how they breach the guidelines, but we need you to play your role as a citizen of this site who uses the mechanisms available to everyone, rather than insisting that you are above the guidelines and refusing to use the mechanisms we offer. Please stop fixating on other comments and take responsibility for your own conduct and role in making this site what you expect it to be.

Edit: To be clear, the reason your comments were acted on is that they were flagged and commented on by other community members. We act mostly on what we're alerted to, which is why I keep telling you that we need you to alert us to things if you want them acted upon (and not just as a way of deflecting from the conduct you're being called out for). It's also false that we hadn't acted on other comments in the subthread.

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