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You may not feel you owe $BigCoEmployee better (though chances are, said person is just as much a community member here as you and the other users slamming them are), but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
As the dozens of other comments show, the overwhelming majority of us do not believe the root commentors claims, and this PM quite objectively does not have the leverage and authority to back their claim that they won’t let this happen again.
It’s hard not to read your conception of “trying for something different” as granting undue credulity to a transparently dishonest corporate actor.
The impulse to hit back against what is perceived as a "transparently dishonest corporate actor" is natural and human. I feel it also, and in fact my first response when I read such comments is always an adrenaline surge and the peculiar pleasure-hit of righteous indignation. So yes, I know where these feelings are coming from; we all do.
The problem is that in the HN context, (1) there is a human being at the other end of the account being attacked, and (2) there are orders of magnitude more attackers. In practice, this can easily turn into a mob dynamic and in fact a mass beating, if a virtual one. That's bad in its own right and bad for the community here.
Edit - past explanations in case relevant:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28821698
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28647036
more at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Honest question: If we agree that the transparent dishonesty and the lynch mob behavior are both undesirable, how do you think the two should be balanced in operative terms?
I don’t want to put words in your mouth — but are you saying you won’t allow direct pushback to dishonest corporate actors??
My view is that healthy discourse requires balance and proportionality: flagrant dishonesty, as is the case here, should license a proportional degree of pushback.
I don’t agree at all that “nobody believes this” is quite the personal attack you’re making it out to be, but I don’t care to debate that at length either.
(1) the long-term health of the community has to be the priority here. Otherwise it won't survive—all the default internet vectors point the other way;
(2) it's possible to push back, express skepticism, etc., in way that respects the person on the other side of the conversation and isn't just venting the impulse to shame the other.
You guys (<-- by which I really mean all of us in this community) need to remember that you're not just addressing a $BigCo abstraction when you post replies to someone else's comments. You're talking to an individual human. Sure, they may be working for a large and powerful company; but in the HN context the power dynamic is actually quite the reverse. If you put yourself in their shoes for a minute, it shouldn't be so hard to recognize that.
Like I said upthread, I agree with you on the underlying issue. But we also have to preserve the container, and the latter has to take precedence.
At the end of the day, if you want intellectual curiosity and openness, bad-faith dishonesty needs to be weeded out; thought-provoking and honest conversation should be promoted, regardless of where the contributor is employed.
The problem isn’t working for Microsoft. The problem is dishonesty.
You’re treating the root comment with kid gloves because it’s from a Microsoft employee. Please don’t do that.
It's obvious that the dominant variable in the GP was that he was replying from within $BigCo. Your comment starts out by denying that and ends by confirming it.
I'm not asking for special treatment for anyone, but the opposite: I don't anyone on HN to be the target of a mob. That's the entire point.
The root comment is an aggressive affront to the audience’s collective intelligence. You’re in full “rules for thee; not for me” territory, and undermining your own site guidelines if you wanna let the root comment stand unchecked but go after the rightful callouts, in my book.