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Comment by tomhow | Hacker News Reader

On principle I’m not reading this.

Your comment I replied to began with “Retarded fucking take.”

I don’t care what opinion you’re expressing; most of the time, including this time, I barely even know what opinion is being expressed. It doesn’t matter. My role is to uphold the guidelines and a comment like that is the most straightforward guidelines breach we ever see here.

Disagreement and vigorous debate is fine here; it’s one of the main purposes of the site. HN has existed for almost 20 years, entirely because we have guidelines and uphold them evenly.

Stop deflecting and sermonizing and find a way to express your points without that kind of filth.

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It's not deflecting. You're moralizing. You're not the thought police, Tom. How did you get to this point?

But you do you, I already knew this place is an exercise in authoritarianism, you're just proving it.

This isn’t difficult. You can think what you want and argue for what you believe in vigorously. We work hard to make this a site where everyone can do that, no matter what they’re arguing for, and we take criticism from all sides and from all kinds of people for the way we do that.

The guidelines are simple and are designed to stop this place from going up in flames daily. They are here to protect you just as much as anyone else.

Please stop acting like an entitled jerk and have some respect for this community if you’re expecting anyone here read the ideas you want to express.

Then why not just edit the one word and give a warning shot instead of censoring the rest of the post, which was entirely on topic and argued well, and in good faith?

Like I said, you need to stop acting like an entitled jerk. It’s not our job to clean up your mess and besides, if we went around editing people’s comments there would be uproar. So, enough of this carry on, thanks. Just follow the guidelines like almost everyone else does. It’s really not hard and basic respect is not an unreasonable expectation.

I am not a jerk for using language you don't like. For me, it is a civic calling.

You would know that if you read the post I thoughtfully constructed to enlighten you on that point.

Legitimate conflicts deserve to be met with legitimate resolutions. Your ban-hammer attitude is the thing out of line here. That's why I keep calling you authoritarian. You are acting like the sole arbiter of what is good and acceptable and the rigidity with which you do it has a cooling effect on real, legitimate discourse. Which is anti-human of you.

Your comment was downvoted and flagged to an extreme extent by fellow community members. Responding to community expectations is central to what we do and this community expects comments opening with “Retard fucking take” to be killed, any day of the week.

Own your poor behavior and stop fixating on me. You could have written multiple substantive comments in the time you’ve spent on this.

The r-word policy is noted. The effect it has had is a cooling effect - I am less likely to contribute to this community now than I was before; this is how the site leans more and more right-wing every day, by the way.

What matters to me is people who are robotically enacting policies that are anti-human in the name of capital come back to their humanity. That's why I took the time with you.

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