From HN guidelines:

>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

(I'm a bit torn about pointing this out in this case, but I've seen way too many people falsely accused of bigotry because people chose to interpret comments in a way different from intended. Still, this is clearly a throwaway account).

I wrote that comment using a new account to avoid being outed at work. To be very clear: your accusation is false, there was never any special parentheses, and I invite an admin to confirm that if they can.

I'm sure you wrote this in good faith, but there weren't parens in the original comment. They only appeared in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19470714. The odd thing is that eli_gottlieb was making an unrelated point at the time (a strange and almost endearingly paranoid one, but that's another story).

This looks like a case of the internet snark trope where people use quotation marks to put nasty words in others' mouths, leading to misunderstanding and unfairness. That's why we've long asked users not to do that: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... It has never been in the official guidelines but it's been a bit of case law on this site for a long time.

I guess a troll is going to troll, but the idea that some coded message was in my comment is just insane.

I unequivocally deny any use of “triple parens”. Full stop.

Could an admin with access to edit history please straighten this out?

Alright, I checked the logs. There were never any parentheses in that comment. kjbfojbejib made two edits, but only to add to the text. Both additions were to the part about other businesses in the same neighborhoods, i.e. they were not part of the disputed text.

If you continue to troll HN we will ban you. Please stop posting unsubstantive comments as well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Oh shut up and let people disagree you fucking insane sjw.

Now wait just a moment - isn't pointing out things are "too white" exactly analogous? Yet that's somehow acceptable to say at almost any major media outlet [1]. You yourself implied his comment would have been okay if directed at Christians. Why should white people be the only group that's called out for over-representation?

[1] E.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/29/eu-is-too-whit...

Agreed. It's not right to single out any religion, particularly insomuch as some flavor of this insularity can be found in every stream of religious thought that has ever existed

Generally, I have low tolerance for any group that segregates most of their existence from the greater whole - but then demands accommodation from the greater whole. Most Jews, Christians and Muslims do not - but some do - those communities who refuse to participate in broader society are in my mind inherently forfeiting their place at the table - simply put, you cannot expect broader society to accommodate your particular needs if you don't participate in it.

Calling out anti-semites or their methods is not echoing anti-semitism. I've edited the actual parens out but I'm not deleting the comment. People are free to flag it if they disagree.

I agree with you. Calling out anti-semitic speech as "that's not OK here, even if you first flash it overtly and then make it slightly less obvious" seems to me to be the exact opposite of that accusation.