As members of the HN community, that is literally our job to do. Communities are maintained by agreeing on and enforcing norms. You may not agree with someone's assumptions about whether or not something is appropriate, but they are absolutely within their rights to make a value judgment based on that.
> Far from white noise, the parent pointed a specifically interesting (and inane) excerpt from the post.
Yes, but this is a discussion forum. Quoting a section of text and then "annotating" it with "Jesus..." is not discussion, and doesn't foster discussion, at least, no aside from the "yeah, no kidding" variety. Fortunately, in this case, someone has called the poster out on it, and has in the process started discussion about it, but that's in spite of the original, not because of it.
As a member of the HN community, consider where this leads: endless flamewars and meta-discussions on comments, instead of TFA.
Note also that I'm not against people speaking on what's "appropriate for HN" in general, just against particular uncalled for instances. If a comment is defamatory or off-topic etc, it's a fair game.
>Quoting a section of text and then "annotating" it with "Jesus..." is not discussion, and doesn't foster discussion, at least, no aside from the "yeah, no kidding" variety.
Quoting and exclamations are very much part of discussion. In fact, for quoting this should go without saying. From books to scientific papers and on to legendary literary or scholarly exchanges, you'll find extended use of quotations. It is an act of curation and highlighting. Same for the annotation "Jesus", that serves to give us a clear indication of what the commenter thought of the quotation (he doesn't approve of it).
You claim that "it didn't foster discussion", but you are disproven in reality. Besides the distracting meta-discussion, the comment did foster discussion of that particular quote, which you can see in the thread below, with people arguing pro and against the very ideas expressed in the quote.
Which is why it's generally more appropriate to use the downvote & flag buttons rather than engaging in meta discussion. Which we're clearly not doing here ;)
> You claim that "it didn't foster discussion", but you are disproven in reality. Besides the distracting meta-discussion, the comment did foster discussion of that particular quote, which you can see in the thread below, with people arguing pro and against the very ideas expressed in the quote.
Hmm. Yes, that's true, but 1) we do have this distracting meta discussion here that wouldn't be here if the original post wasn't so content-free, and 2) I see something as a quote + simple explanation as the laziest, weakest way to attempt to foster discussion. Yes, that's just my opinion! And you're right in this case that some (good!) discussion did result from the original (IMO weak) post. But that doesn't mean that's anywhere near the best way to foster discussion, and I'd like to see the bar raised; this is a great community that I don't want to see degrade.
Maybe don't assume what's "appropriate for HN" (unless something is obviously offensive or spam, etc)? Far from white noise, the parent pointed a specifically interesting (and inane) excerpt from the post. Whether you agree or disagree, it doesn't take much imagination to see what one can find appalling in that part.
First, not sure if the author is half-joking, but the notion that tall people are fair game because they "earn substantially more money on average" is especially idiotic. Something true "on average" (and from statistics the poster read for specific cultures/countries) doesn't obviously apply to all members. Besides, rich people, whether short or tall, don't pay more for anything else they buy unless they they want too -- so again this would be just an arbitrary tax on tallness.
Second, the post goes on to say that "the overweight and obese? They receive no such life benefits, and it feels rather cruel, if not illegal, to ask them to pay extra for the same service".
Only it's obviously not about having benefits in other fields of life (!), it's about their weight's cost to the airline (more personal weight amounts to less cargo, more fuel etc).
>But this is also a post from a blog, not an article from The Economist - I think the opinion is shallow and poorly thought out, but it's just an opinion.
So?