"You decided to call the author of this thread (a real person) a racist because they mention imaginary racists."
Did I? You might want to read back. I said calling people racist for bringing up traffic issues could itself seem racist.
"The thread talks about hypothetical, rather than specific people who oppose development in bad faith using other reasons to hide their true, often racially- or class- tinged reasons."
Did I miss the part about classist people? I only saw NIMBY and race mentioned.
Are these hypothetical people? It seems the author is using real life experiences in this article, so in this context I assume they are talking about real, yet unnamed, examples they have witnessed. If not, it seems odd that they would offer up detailed, named, real examples for other parts, but not for this. Seems a bit hand wavy about it happening at any significant scale as well as in it's implication that people concerned about a traffic issue are all racists since there is no mention of the legitimate concern.
I'd rather not read back because then I'd have to read a really lousy comment in which you decide to focus on a single detail of this thread you find provocative, deploy a horrid flamy 'who are the real racists' trope and then complain about downvotes, all of which the guidelines ask you not to do. Beside just being kind of awful. Just don't this shit.
"I'd rather not read back because then I'd have to read a really lousy comment in which you decide to focus on a single detail of this thread you find provocative, deploy a horrid flamy 'who are the real racists' trope and then complain about downvotes, all of which the guidelines ask you not to do. Beside just being kind of awful. Just don't this shit."
Please do read back because you have you're facts wrong. My comment mentioned the racist labeling issue. But it primarily was focused at bringing up the issue of how housing preferences are a big part of costs. It seems nobody wanted to talk about that part and instead chose to go after this other part.
I don't believe I violated any guidelines. My comment was intended to talk to the substance of the article (housing costs) and also call into question the validity of insinuating that people raising potentially valid issues in their communities is somehow racist. The author doesn't even address the traffic claims in detail. It's possible the person rasing the traffic issue isn't opposed to the project based on race but on another reason like cost to the community to re-engineering the intersection (it's quite common to make developers pay for the traffic modifications and allow the project to continue).
I don't see my comment as being flame bait. I had no intention of it spawning such extensive replies. I believe all of my comments have been high quality and served a valid point/correction/etc. If you can't see that, can you explain why? You claim I'm employing a horrid troupe, yet this seems to violate the HN guideline to be charitable. I'd much rather discuss the actual content than this discussion about each other's comments.
I don't believe I complained about downvoting. I merely asked why. To me this seems fair to ask as discourse can generate new knowledge and that curiosity is a big part of hacker culture. There are a lot of other users on this site who have seen downvotes abused and would like to see comments attached.
The guidelines, linked at the bottom of the page, say "don't comment about the voting on comments", which is what you did. Please don't do that anymore. That there are a lot of users who would like to see discussions of downvotes is why the guideline is there.
If you are enforcing the guidelines (no idea if you're a mod or someone else), can you remove the main post since it clearly violates guidelines for being a political topic that is not a new phenomenon, and also counsel the other individuals for violating the guidelines by misinterpreting my comments and calling my opinions/discussion and curiosity "shit"?
I try to abide by the guidelines. Would a better way to be curious be "why disagree without comments?". I would like to facilitate discussion in accordance with the hacking principle and HN guideline of being curious (it would really suck if I'm not allowed to be curious here). I'm not sure how we can facilitate this discussion without asking for additional clarification or reasoning. This should lead to discussion of the content, and maybe provide one or more parties with additional knowledge or clarify a misunderstanding. Certainly it provides more value than downvoting a comment just because one disagrees with it, as votes don't contribute to discussion nor curiosity.
Allowing for (even encouraging) downvotes without comment or explanation is an explicit goal of the site, which was designed by someone who was irritated with the clutter of superficial negative comments.
Oh, thats different from what I've heard. Do you have a source? I'm wondering what the context and details were.
My understanding was that downvotes without comments are appropriate/encouraged for specific types of comments, like bots, spam, comments without any substance, or violations of the guidelines. Essentially, comments in reply to those do not supply any additonal content or contribute to the discussion (hence the additional clarification in the guideline about boring reading in relation to comments on voting), and responding to them can just turn into a thread of comments that lack any substance. However, a comment that seeks to discuss various points related to the article and are downvoted simply because people disagree seem to violate the principle of curiosity and discussion.
Basically, I thought questions out of curiosity, even around downvotes were ok. Also that downvoting is more or less targeted at guideline violations and not just disagreement. But Maybe I'm taking dang out of context. Like I'm not trying to argue my downvotes and change their minds. I just want to know why I was downvoted so I can learn.
The guidelines couldn't be much clearer about this: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
This thread is fulfilling the Guideline Prophecy now, so here's where I bow out.
That's odd since you were the one to resurrect this thread that I thought was finished. I'm still waiting for your source on this:
"Allowing for (even encouraging) downvotes without comment or explanation is an explicit goal of the site, which was designed by someone who was irritated with the clutter of superficial negative comments."
Although, again, the guidelines are super-explicit about not going on about voting, not dingleberrypicking one thing that irritates you in a post, etc. And generally, you can just type author:dang [your topic of choice] into search and get a learned opinion. You'll find most of your interpretation of the guidelines above to be inaccurate.
"Although, again, the guidelines are super-explicit about not going on about voting"
I merely asked for additionally context for a conversation. Others have instigated this longer conversation. They don't seem super explicit if two guidelines conflict with each other, especially if it conflicts the core principles of curiosity and discussion.
"not dingleberrypicking one thing that irritates you in a post"
Again, if you read back you can see that it wasn't one thing in my comment, but that others decided to engage on one part of my comment and largely ignore the other.
"And generally, you can just type author:dang [your topic of choice] into search and get a learned opinion."
Which I did, and posted the previous link that seems to indicate that downvotes are more for comments breaking guidelines than for disagreeing without comment. However, I do see that the links posted by you have pg stating that downvoting is used for disagreement. Seems a little odd though, that it's purpose is for disagreement but we can't downvote replies that we disagree with. This logical issue seems to indicate that it's not just for disagreement, and that debate and discussion is also valued (as stated in the guidelines).
"You'll find most of your interpretation of the guidelines above to be inaccurate."
Or perhaps you are misapplying the guidelines because you misunderstand the facts of this scenario.
No, the facts are you dingleberrypicked, used a trope and complained about downvoting. You also think political discussions aren't allowed here, that the goal of 'curiosity' is more or less whatever you want, that downvoters owe you receipts, etc. You can literally find big dollops of moderator comments directly contradicting all of these - you simply happen to be wrong about these straightforward things. They aren't any less straightforward because you don't like them and you haven't even got around to acknowledging you are wrong about even the straightforwardest. Let's wrap up here.
Did I? You might want to read back. I said calling people racist for bringing up traffic issues could itself seem racist.
"The thread talks about hypothetical, rather than specific people who oppose development in bad faith using other reasons to hide their true, often racially- or class- tinged reasons."
Did I miss the part about classist people? I only saw NIMBY and race mentioned.
Are these hypothetical people? It seems the author is using real life experiences in this article, so in this context I assume they are talking about real, yet unnamed, examples they have witnessed. If not, it seems odd that they would offer up detailed, named, real examples for other parts, but not for this. Seems a bit hand wavy about it happening at any significant scale as well as in it's implication that people concerned about a traffic issue are all racists since there is no mention of the legitimate concern.