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Comment by ofjcihen | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Let's not do this kind of thing here? There's plenty to engage with in their comments without resorting to ad-hominems or similar.

(your comment is pretty mild, I'm just worried about the general trend on HN)

It's not an ad-hominem. When people are talking their book, you should know that they're talking their book, and that knowledge doesn't have to negate any sound points they're making or cause you to disregard everything they're saying, it just colors your evaluation of their arguments, as it should. I don't think this is controversial, and seeing that comment flagged is pretty disheartening, adding context is almost never a bad thing.

It is quite literally an ad-hominem, in that it is aimed at the person, not the argument. The issue isn't that more context is bad (I agree with you, it's useful), it's that as a policy for a discussion board I think allowing this kind of thing is a bad idea. People can be mistaken, or lie, and comments get ugly fast when it's personal. Not to mention the fine line between this and doxxing.

(e.g. here, the OP has claimed that they do not in fact have a vested interest in AI - so was this "context" really a good thing?)

I appreciate this response and I’m also as confused as you are. It’s information relevant to the conversation, not an accusation (it would be an odd accusation to make, no?)

I don't care, in part because the claim is false, but there's literally a guideline saying you can't do this, so I guess it's worth knowing that you're wrong too.

Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

In this case it’s relevant to the discussion as the user was questioning why you were making the points you were.

It’s not an accusation of shilling, it’s context where context was requested.

As a test imagine if you changed the context to something good such as “AI achieves the unthinkable” and the responding user asked why someone was so optimistic about the achievement.

It’s relevant context to the conversation, nothing else.

It's false context meant to impeach my arguments. Not a close call.

I promise that’s not the case but we can let it go for now.

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