I understand, and I don't want to see ads in such contexts either. But "nobody believes this" is of course a personal attack, and "you don't have the power to [do what you just said you will do]" is pretty aggressive too.

The impulse to hit back against what is perceived as a "transparently dishonest corporate actor" is natural and human. I feel it also, and in fact my first response when I read such comments is always an adrenaline surge and the peculiar pleasure-hit of righteous indignation. So yes, I know where these feelings are coming from; we all do.

The problem is that in the HN context, (1) there is a human being at the other end of the account being attacked, and (2) there are orders of magnitude more attackers. In practice, this can easily turn into a mob dynamic and in fact a mass beating, if a virtual one. That's bad in its own right and bad for the community here.

Edit - past explanations in case relevant:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28821698

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28647036

more at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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Dylan16807 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I would say that "nobody believes this" would usually be a personal attack by default but when it's followed up with "you do not have the power to prevent it" it's not a personal attack.

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wswope 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The impulse to hit back against what is perceived as a "transparently dishonest corporate actor" is natural and human.

Honest question: If we agree that the transparent dishonesty and the lynch mob behavior are both undesirable, how do you think the two should be balanced in operative terms?

I don’t want to put words in your mouth — but are you saying you won’t allow direct pushback to dishonest corporate actors??

My view is that healthy discourse requires balance and proportionality: flagrant dishonesty, as is the case here, should license a proportional degree of pushback.

I don’t agree at all that “nobody believes this” is quite the personal attack you’re making it out to be, but I don’t care to debate that at length either.

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dang 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Two thoughts:

(1) the long-term health of the community has to be the priority here. Otherwise it won't survive—all the default internet vectors point the other way;

(2) it's possible to push back, express skepticism, etc., in way that respects the person on the other side of the conversation and isn't just venting the impulse to shame the other.

You guys (<-- by which I really mean all of us in this community) need to remember that you're not just addressing a $BigCo abstraction when you post replies to someone else's comments. You're talking to an individual human. Sure, they may be working for a large and powerful company; but in the HN context the power dynamic is actually quite the reverse. If you put yourself in their shoes for a minute, it shouldn't be so hard to recognize that.

Like I said upthread, I agree with you on the underlying issue. But we also have to preserve the container, and the latter has to take precedence.

	▲	wswope 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s not about bigco at all in my eyes. At the end of the day, if you want intellectual curiosity and openness, bad-faith dishonesty needs to be weeded out; thought-provoking and honest conversation should be promoted, regardless of where the contributor is employed. The problem isn’t working for Microsoft. The problem is dishonesty. You’re treating the root comment with kid gloves because it’s from a Microsoft employee. Please don’t do that.