Dang, is your response directed at me or the original poster, because it looks like you are singling just me out and not the poster about this selectively;
If that is the case, you need to take a hard look and rewrite your guidelines so they don't conflict and are consistent, as well as stop providing the advice you yourself have personally given as that too conflicts, and rules must be consistent for them to be fair and followed.
These are excerpts directly from an email you sent me many months ago when I had seen enough of false propaganda just oozing onto your platform that I finally complained about those propaganda statements being made and other issues to you directly. Here is your response.
"We don't moderate accounts for being wrong. The community has to sort this out, for a bunch of reasons."
...
"We've always operated HN on the assumption that readers are smart enough to make up their own minds; "
...
end excerpt>
So, if you are warning me for this, and only allow one side as it seems you are doing now, what you told me previously in writing, is just flat out false, and most importantly here we aren't talking about ideology or even politics in a normative fashion, we are talking about economics and systems of government that have real impact on survival over longer periods of time and the elements of such. Its definite, not opinion, and most importantly I'm addressing false statements made, and resources where one could learn more of the truth to critically think about these problems.
To me, it looks like you are doing the exact opposite of what you said you would do and how you said the site is run. I'd appreciate further clarification.
In either case, if your platform is going to be a one-way propaganda platform where you and other moderators do actually moderate arbitrarily for only one side of a conversation despite saying the opposite.
I'd want no part in it, that's not why I came here, and I certainly don't need to stay. I don't visit for the purpose of being bombarded by false statements and being prevented from setting those false statements straight while at the same time have systems that have actually worked be disparaged without any ability to combat falseness. This is intolerable to any rational thinking person as intelligent thought is the main difference between us and animals.
Credibility is important to me, and if you are applying rules to me arbitrarily for this, you have inconsistent rules, and no one can follow inconsistent rules because its arbitrary, it changes at every conflict.
Technically, they aren't even rules at that point they are heuristics matched to the people who moderate and based on their hidden state of natural biases and however they feel that day. Any person would need to be a mindreader with future sight to have any action not be non-sequitur. This obviously isn't possible, and the outcome of any action becomes indeterminate with regards to the compliance of said 'rules'.
If you need further time to respond, please feel free to instead send the response by email. I'll be looking for a platform that values free and open discussion and allows people the ability to fairly combat falseness.
I have no intention of being a victim of the principle outlined by Sapir-Whorf with regards to thought reform, and the appearance or outcome of ignoring false statements is universally recognized as consent that you agree with them (John Locke and beyond).
You posted a bunch of really long generic ideological flamewar comments in this thread. That's not what we want here. It has nothing to do with your specific views—we don't track the comments for those, nor care what they are. We just don't want that type of discussion.
If you think someone else was also doing that and didn't get a proper scolding, I'd be happy to take a look at links.
You flagged my response here, please review the person I responded to (one level up, and one level down).
Anyone making false statements like that is going to be corrected. To do nothing is to accept it by consent and all that entails (Sapir-Whorf). I flagged it, no action was taken. Falsehoods were found in both.
As I said, its intolerable being forced to accept falseness and be punished or prevented from being able to do anything about it.
I'll leave if it becomes clear that's what this is and be glad to do so as I'm sure any reasonable and intelligent person would.
Ideology is normative, I kept strictly to addressing deceptions, and falseness which were not normative. You clearly read it as ideological. Many people confound and conflate the two because people who use deception and deceit often intentionally corrupt language for the purpose of dual meanings. This dissembling is pernicious, even when talking about systems clearly, communication can become impossible because many deceitful people try to make it about ideology which this is not that.
Psychopolitics first addressed this form of dissembling in the literature early 50s iirc. Also, this duality of tokens makes it impossible to filter effectively because it breaks determinism, a required property for computation. So this is strictly up to the mods to police at scale.
If there is to be none of one, there should be none of either. I'm fine with that as long as you moderate and censor people like the person I responded to equally.
Though that would be in opposition of what you have previously said about who moderates what and how the site is run (hence the request for clarification). It would be better to have clear rules than addressing conflicts like this adhoc and after the fact (in terms of your time, and my time).
TL:DR
I would not have said anything, if they had not made a false statement, the same goes for the follow-on response. There is no criteria by which you can determine the post meets the referenced rule before a response is made, and its normative based on the mods. A poster will always have violated the rule before they knew they violated it simply by responding as one must do.
You do not let false statements stand unless you agree with the statement. This is core to any communication as any number of professionals who have degrees in legal, communications, or philosophy will confirm.
Someone claims its ideology, and me communicating that's not what this is about doesn't make what I'm communicating about ideology, or more accurately normative or value-based.
I get it, if the rules need to be revised appropriately, that's fine. It just needs to be clear so we can follow them, and as a reader, hopefully not have to deal with coercive or subversive narratives or communications always blasting in my face when I just want to read the news, reporting it, and then being told the mods allow it and then holding me to a different double standard when I follow the advice given. That's how it looks.
Incidentally, anyone reporting this to you should also be equally censured for wasting your time and more importantly not reporting the other person. To me this seriously is starting to look more and more now that I think about it; like a malicious compliance effort to get you to jump in and by extension threaten your credibility and HN news credibility, while promoting a false narrative by extension of outcome.
If I was in your position, I'd be upset because your rules say nothing about how you deal with intentionally false reports either, and its hard to say this isn't that considering I was reported, but the others involved conveniently were not and I'm not the instigator I was simply responding so it looks targeted.
To me it looks like someone wound you up taking advantage of inconsistencies in your rules and set you loose on me to promote a false narrative and silence a critic.
Since we've previously spoken and you seemed fair and honest in our previous communications, I have to wonder if that's what's actually going on here now that I've had some time to think, its far more likely someone is manipulating you than you'd try to burn your credibility and service down for no perceived benefit (Occam's Razer).
Edit: Looks like the posts are 36377821, as well as 36378754. Those were the two posts I flagged and responded to address the false statements or false context being put forth after no action appeared to be forthcoming.
The responses were civil, and high quality as I did not attack, I easily could have as I am quite knowledge in the subject area but nothing changes when people get defensive so I generally choose to err on the side of not being antagonistic; and just correcting the lies. Although it can be hard to do that when the outcome being promoted inevitably (over time) ends in slavery, and some would argue extinction.
I even included recommendations for books that credibly address history and the subjects involved for historic support. I did this despite these people dissembling as I previously mentioned.
While, I briefly mention beliefs that are false and limiting, and that being a great evil. The statement itself is strictly constructive and indicates this specific statement as normative. Beliefs have to be taken on faith, and we were talking about systems and statements of fact and history, as I tried to make clear so any readers would not be confused. Instead you ended up warning a number of others with possible bans for breaking the rules, for what seemed to me to be sybil attack type behavior, and I also received a warning for doing the right thing. Which is why I requested clarification, I also took a 5 point drop for doing the right thing in protecting myself and others. The same structural issues as I previously mentioned in that email several months ago.
If I cannot respond to false statements without fear of punishment, this clearly isn't the place for me; and isn't a place of discussion in any sense of the definition.
Thank you for making that clear. Those comments were also was not ideological. In any case I wish you the best, I will not be around further.
Edit: you've repeatedly been posting unsubstantive comments as well as breaking the site guidelines badly in some cases (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35120315). We ban accounts that do that. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review the rules and stick to them, we'd appreciate it.
Edit: you've been posting so many unsubstantive and flamebait comments that I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Capitalism is basically strip-mining the West; there is no long-term future in it.