Comment by tomhow
19 hours ago
Please don't claim victimhood (“censorship”) when your comments are flagged. The guidelines apply equally to everyone, and the flags on your comments are from good community members who have a track record of flagging responsibly, to help keep the discussions healthy.
HN’s purpose is to be a place for intellectual curiosity, not ideological battle or railing against things you find disagreeable.
If by "intelectual curiosity ' you mean groupthink and bias that flags opposing points of view members find uncomfortable, not the honest unbiased application of rules.
Flag-bombing is a real issues on HN in case you didn't know.
What's the point of a board that doesn't allow all viewpoints and just smells it's own farts?
We routinely turn off flags and unkill comments that have been wrongly flagged. Anyone can email us and ask us to review a flagged comment.
We work very hard to make HN a place where the spectrum of viewpoints can be expressed and debated. Just a few days ago via email support I made a special effort to persuade someone to stick with HN when they felt their views are too much in the minority. I would gladly do that daily to keep discussion on HN diverse and interesting.
We'd happily have you share your views if you can present them in a way that's interesting and kind to other community members. But a clear line is crossed when people approach discussions with a hostile, aggressive mentality, and that's what's been apparent in too many of your comments.
The guidelines, our stated goals, and expected behavioral standards on HN have been consistent for years. Everyone is expected to adhere to the guidelines, otherwise we have to ban them, to prevent the place from burning to the ground.
It's only by consistently doing this that we keep HN a place that people want to visit to discover and discuss interesting topics.