Re:Bye, Amazon
by dang on Monday May 04, 2020 @05:15PM
(#23073350)
You can't post like this to HN without evidence, because the vast majority of such accusations are pure imagination. I know that because I've spent countless hours over many years poring over data on this. There is lots of previous explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for anyone who wants it.
HN has millions of users on all sides of every major ideological divide. When a community is that large and divided, the appearance of a comment you don't like is evidence of nothing more than that the topic is divisive. To go beyond that in terms of accusing or suspecting others, you need something more to go on, and if you have that, you should be sending it to [email protected] so we can investigate. You should not be tossing internet dross like these one-liners into the threads.
Generally speaking (not picking on you personally), when it comes to internet tropes about things like astroturfing, "pretty obviously" macroexpands to "entirely in my imagination", since if the users who post such accusations actually had anything to go on, they would be the first to mention it.
All this has been in the site guidelines for quite a while. Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here? Note this one: Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data.
Notes for the troubled: (1) I'm not posting this because I love Amazon, hate warehouse workers, or for any ideological reason; it is routine HN moderation and the other side gets it just as well; (2) I'm not saying astroturfing doesn't exist—I'm saying we have to look at it with facts, not just loyalties. Running into comments that offend our loyalties is something we all experience on the internet, especially on a non-siloed (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) site like HN, where people can't self-isolate among the like-minded. There's a strong tendency to defend ourselves against the painful experience of the offensive by accusing the other party of being an abuser, a manipulator, a foreign agent. All sides do this, but it's fatal to the curious conversation that HN exists for, so we all need to coax ourselves out of it.
HN has millions of users on all sides of every major ideological divide. When a community is that large and divided, the appearance of a comment you don't like is evidence of nothing more than that the topic is divisive. To go beyond that in terms of accusing or suspecting others, you need something more to go on, and if you have that, you should be sending it to [email protected] so we can investigate. You should not be tossing internet dross like these one-liners into the threads.
Generally speaking (not picking on you personally), when it comes to internet tropes about things like astroturfing, "pretty obviously" macroexpands to "entirely in my imagination", since if the users who post such accusations actually had anything to go on, they would be the first to mention it.
All this has been in the site guidelines for quite a while. Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here? Note this one: Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data.
Notes for the troubled: (1) I'm not posting this because I love Amazon, hate warehouse workers, or for any ideological reason; it is routine HN moderation and the other side gets it just as well; (2) I'm not saying astroturfing doesn't exist—I'm saying we have to look at it with facts, not just loyalties. Running into comments that offend our loyalties is something we all experience on the internet, especially on a non-siloed (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) site like HN, where people can't self-isolate among the like-minded. There's a strong tendency to defend ourselves against the painful experience of the offensive by accusing the other party of being an abuser, a manipulator, a foreign agent. All sides do this, but it's fatal to the curious conversation that HN exists for, so we all need to coax ourselves out of it.