Giving something a name doesn't automatically make it bad. Internet discussions (HN included) seem to mostly just be people who have no idea what they are talking about speculating wildly, and treating their speculations as unimpeachable. We would benefit a lot from a greater focus on providing sources and evidence.

The description of it as "harassment" is incomprehensible to me. Why post on a discussion board if you aren't willing to handle disagreement, and defend your claims?

TBH, if you want to convince me that someone who is disagreeing with you politely is acting in bad faith, you have an uphill battle.

Generally, it's pretty easy to tell if they're acting in bad faith if you look at their account/post history, especially on sites like twitter dot com.

Countercounterpoint - accusations of "sealioning" are often used against people who genuinely disagree. The underlying assumption is that no good-faith disagreement is possible because the accuser is obviously correct.

I agree. I've been accused of sealioning when the person I responded to has either provided no sources or spewed a bunch of garbage links in place of making an argument. In political discussions, I've somehow been mistaken for a Trump supporter and a "brown, socialist immigrant," when I am actually neither of those things. The internet is weird, sometimes, man.

> I've somehow been mistaken for a Trump supporter and a "brown, socialist immigrant"

This can be also a technique used to lure people into giving their private info.

Instead to ask on internet: Are you a republican white? and obtaining a standard "not your business" they claim that you are brown and socialist, expecting you to correct themselves and reply "not, I'm asian and will vote for X" or so.

This way they can obtain the info to classify you without you even taking notice of it. Is an old trick.

What must be taken in mind is that who you are is irrelevant for the discussion most of the time. Facts are either true, or false (or unknown), no matter who will say it.

Well, people who were going to classify me based on race and what it says for "party preference" on my voter registration card aren't generally open to being convinced of anything, in my experience. I've given both variations of the answer before: that I'm so white I'm provably related to a 17th century American colonial governor (literally true); or, that it's none of their damn business. As far as I can tell, both have had roughly the same effect, which is little to none.