Comment by kstrauser
Comment by kstrauser 8 days ago
When I've found myself being publicly tsk'ed by the people around me, I've taken a moment to try go figure out why they disapprove of what I'm saying. It's been a useful life exercise.
Comment by kstrauser 8 days ago
When I've found myself being publicly tsk'ed by the people around me, I've taken a moment to try go figure out why they disapprove of what I'm saying. It's been a useful life exercise.
Often times, you comment not to change the mind of the person you're replying to, but to provide a rebuttal for the readers at home. If nobody challenges problematic ideology or corrects misinformation, it can spread like a disease.
Shouldn't that be directed to those with an agenda who and are flagging certain posts?
Those of us who complain about this highly targeted flagging just want to avoid censorship. I can't see how we need to reflect on this.
Forums like this are "censored" and that's a really good thing. We don't need a steady stream of (for example) hate for women, minorities, and trans people that you see on truly uncensored forums.
I agree, but when that is abused because of a minorities' preference, then it's bad.
That's what's happening here.
I think we need to get specific -- what preferences are you referring to, and who is the minority?
EcommerceFlow mentioned opinions that are "very normal nationally." I don't want to assume the worst so I'm trying not to read in to that.
I mean, I don’t generally like to go over somebody’s posting history because it feels like stupid very-online silliness, but they brought it up.
I see some unflagged center-right political opinions sometimes. It is stuff that a mainstream democrat would probably disagree with but find, like, not odious or offensive. Therefore I think they are just getting flagged because any political opinions here have a chance of getting flagged. This is how the website is supposed to work, if we as a community decided that mainstream political opinions were ok, the site would become a place to argue about what exactly is considered mainstream.
All illegal speech should be hidden from public discussion.
However, it would be disconcerting if stating biological facts led to censorship on a forum that focusses on science and technology.
The definition of "hate" has been stretched a lot over the last few years, and if that restricts discussion of facts and ideas, then it is harmful.
One major problem is when people presume that their simplistic understanding of a subject is factual, and that everyone else is going off emotion. For example, some people will erroneously claim that the 2 genetic human options are "XX = woman, XY = man". Those seem to be the most likely combinations, partly because we don't collect DNA from 100% of the population and compare it to the observed anatomy, but they're clearly and documentedly not the only options.
Even without considering trans people, it's factually untrue that "XX = woman, XY = man, and those are the only possibilities." And yet, people who stopped at high school biology will argue until they're blue in the teeth that anyone with a more nuanced take is anti-science.
Yes and some people will also make scientifically inaccurate claims like "sex is a spectrum" and "there are more than two sexes" and "it is possible for humans to change sex".
There's a great deal of misunderstanding around this topic. Having open-minded, interesting and reflective discussion about topics like this should however lead to greater understanding. But that is not possible if it gets flagged and censored.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."
"Agendas" are often ideological battlegrounds. I flag comments, even those I agree with, that I recognize from experience are going to lead to the same tired, off-topic debates and flame wars.
Lately, I've also been maintaining a personal uBlock Origin filter list to hide certain prolific rule breakers. I would love if HN had an equivalent built-in "killfile"[0] functionality for auto-hiding submissions and comments. (This has been suggested to the admins, and was seemingly received favorably, but I'm sure it's a matter of resources.)
I draw a distinction between posts and comments here.
Comments that are "pushing an agenda" are noticeable because they Just. Will. Not. Deviate. From. The. Party. Line. Ever. They will never acknowledge an opposing viewpoint's point, no matter how valid. It's not a good faith conversation, and it deserves to be both downvoted and flagged. When one side (or both!) is like talking to a brick wall, this is often what's going on.
Posts are harder. If user X posts articles pushing a viewpoint, that's harder to prove that they're intending to do that. Or it would be, except that user X will also usually be active in the discussion about the article, and their comments will fit the above pattern. If you see that, then you can say that the post was probably pushing an agenda as well.
That would be very positive IMO. It would expose bad actors.
However, the bar for creating new accounts is low, so bad actors could create lots of accounts cheaply and use them for flagging. That's why I think flagging needs to be a privilege that requires a high user "trust level" - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43559629
For sure. I've had comments flagged that I thought were perfectly reasonable and non-controversial. My first reaction was to be angry and annoyed. But then my kinder angels suggested that perhaps I phrased my idea poorly and people misunderstood that I was largely agreeing with them, or at least very respectfully disagreeing. And then I decided to be more careful with my phrasing next time.
Sometimes you're right, sometimes they are. Sometimes, as the Rick & Morty quote goes, "Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer."