I think I was speaking aspirationally, in that the spirit of the guidelines precludes us from relating to the site and each other in such a way. We are ends, not means to an end, if that end involves subverting curious discussion. To my reading, shaming isn’t compatible with arguing in good faith as dang has helped me to understand through breaking the guidelines in strange new ways myself.

I’d be happy to email mods if you think they can tell you better. I’m no authority or guide, as my own comment history shows. I’m not better than you, or who I am replying to. I say this because I care to have a discussion that (only?) HN can enable. We can backbite anywhere (else) online, but the folks who created HN made it for something else, and arguably something greater.

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eightysixfour 3 days ago | parent [-]

> shaming isn’t compatible with arguing in good faith

I don't believe the behavior that is analyzed here was done in good faith, it is in fact a direct attack on things that I strongly believe in. Striving for good faith argument is only effective when both sides agree that they gain mutual benefits through agreement, otherwise your good faith is used as a tool to stall, disrupt, and do harm.

In that case, shaming is an appropriate response.

	▲	aspenmayer 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Striving for good faith argument is only effective when both sides agree that they gain mutual benefits through agreement, otherwise your good faith is used as a tool to stall, disrupt, and do harm. I may agree that this is an unequal yoke slung across both a good faith commenter and a rules-lawyered troll, assuming that your interpretation is accurate. However, it is not for us to say that bad faith must be answered with bad, and in fact the guidelines say that we must keep the good faith even in the face of bad. Otherwise we become the very thing we wrestle against. You’re arguing for a kind of strained logic that suggests that two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do, as if that could justify driving the wrong way down a one-way street. All roads might lead to Rome, but you can’t get there from here. For what it’s worth, the comment I’m referring to in which shaming by me was perhaps not consistent with the guidelines was this one, in which I say that the commenter was wrong, their comment was bad, and they should feel bad. Dang said that this wasn’t okay, and I tend to agree to a point. We aren’t solely preaching to the choir here, so it’s not for me to say that they should feel bad per se, because that would be to stand in judgment of them as a person, and not merely to find their views contemptible. I don’t know if I find dang’s reasoning entirely convincing on the points, but I know his heart is in the right place by calling me out when I emailed him about being rate limited. You may also feel free to judge me, as I have also found myself feeling as you do. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44568173