Please do not perpetuate flamewars on HN, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. You did a ton of that in this thread. That is seriously not cool. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.

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

Edit: we've been having to ask you not to do this kind of thing for many years:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29220499 (Nov 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25615528 (Jan 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23384415 (June 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480861 (March 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18761110 (Dec 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11885616 (June 2016)

If you keep doing it, we're going to end up having to ban you, so please stop doing it.

It's really very shocking news to me that I perpetuate anything on HN except the occasional comment (with big gaps of inactivity, too).

I got under attack, my comments have been misrepresented, and I'm defending myself. Admittedly not in a timid manner. But that tends to happen when you put people on the defensive by constantly almost copy-pasting the same criticisms.

What would you do?

You linked 6 instances of fairly minor transgressions (at least in my mind; tons of people mention downvotes and are NEVER warned; a lot troll openly, get heavily flagged, and weeks later I still don't see them warned).

This thread here is the first and biggest example and it's the first (and last) where I'd agree with you that I crossed the line.

Your comment is fairly saddening to me and feels like targeting, and/or as an effort to enforce an echo chamber. I am very sure that is not your intention so I invite you to write to me on my email so we can settle this properly with more and better nuanced discussion.

I stand by my conviction that I got misrepresented and got attacked by a lot of people who freely interpreted a comment not made in bad faith, while clearly demonstrating lack of benefit of the doubt themselves. Have they been warned like I am here?

And I'm the bad guy for having none of their attacks?

Ouch. There's something not cool.

Again, feel free to email me and maybe you'll see I'm not some sort of a villain spreading hate on HN. Unpopular opinions shouldn't go under a relentless fire.

If not, keeping quiet on HN is the easiest thing for me to do. I'll prefer it because I don't want to lose my account. But, for the last time, you're making a mistake and are likely misunderstanding me due to cultural differences. Please, do consider that.

Everyone always feels like the others started it, and did worse, while they were only defending themselves. Basically we all underestimate our own destructive contributions by (let's call it) 10x and overestimate others' by another 10x, so "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" by a good 100x.

This is how threads end up in a downward spiral [1], with each person perpetuating the flamewar while feeling like they're in the right and it's the other ones behaving badly. But flamewar comments like these ones you posted are just not ok on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29863713

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29863283

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29863274

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861393

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861220

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861112

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861092

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861088

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861062

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861036

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29860983

If you review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, surely it isn't hard to see that such comments are the opposite of what we want on HN.

As for other users breaking the site guidelines, if you look elsewhere in the thread you'll see that I scolded a bunch of them just as much—for example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29868575

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29868531

It always feels like the mods are against you [2] and that you're being singled out while others are let off lightly or ignored. That's not so. It just feels that way, similar to how it always feel like you're the one the cops pull over for speeding or the refs are always making calls against the home team.

What is true is that there are lots of comments breaking the site guidelines that don't get moderated, but that's not because we're treating them specially—it's because we don't see them all. We can't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here [3]. There's far too much.

Btw, it's better from my perspective to have these discussions in public because then there's a chance that others can see and learn from them. A 1-to-1 email conversation has far less leverage and the number of demands for moderator attention vastly exceeds the limited supply, which is why my worst-case latency in replying to emails is unfortunately so terrible.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang&da...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Thanks for elaborating. And thank you for showing me that I'm not singled out. That was very important for me and it does make the ending of the whole thing better.

While I can't say with clear conscience that I agree 100%, I do agree with your general observations and would put my agreement percentage at, say, 80%.

This situation also gave me a good opportunity to reflect and understand that there's no point in stressing myself in HN so I will definitely stay away from such loaded topics for a long time.

I should have been here only for the technology news anyway so I'll stick to those. I will both protect my mental health and not dilute HN in one stroke.

Thank you for following up, it's much appreciated.