That really is an interesting issue. I've been noting a few more posts here on hacker news recently getting flagged for "personal attacks" that I, personally, would have interpreted as someone calling out nonsense, and that not calling them out was more offensive.
Regardless of whether he does or does not sound like a shill ... how do we extend this to things like:
- Pointing out Nimby's in SF housing markets?
- Calling someone a salesperson/marketer/advertiser (which I view as offensive...but is often highly-accurate/true)
- Pointing out the self-interest in boosters talking up tech/bitcoing/etc
Indeed, in many of these recent observances of "personal attacks", what I view as actually happening is silently assenting to the worldview of an original poster/article and protecting that worldview. Contrary opinions or valuations or interpretations of events are taken as "personal attacks", which can be really quite repugnant when, sometimes, the more morally questionable/civilised position is in fact that of protecting the right to point out that which probably should be attacked in any reasonable discussion/society in the first place: (say, saying Theranos looks like a bunch of scammers/grifters, various startups and SF culture looks eerily like the past practiecs of get-rich-quick-schemes and boosterism)...
If you want to, it's actually pretty easy to respond substantively to the wrongness in another comment without calling names or attacking the commenter personally. Besides being easy, it makes your response more credible. So I don't think there's a tradeoff here—just bad habits that we all need to grow out of.
What civility does demand is a willingness to forego the pleasures of venting and lashing out at what (and who) one dislikes. That can be hard to do when something we read sets off a pre-existing opinion or emotion. But doing it has a vast effect on discussion quality, so it's necessary.
> Indeed, in many of these recent observances of "personal attacks", what I view as actually happening is silently assenting to the worldview of an original poster/article and protecting that worldview.
It's hard to respond to a generality like that but I'm pretty sure that we're not assenting to or protecting specific worldviews when we ask people to be civil on this site. It's tempting to see the moderation that way because the cases you dislike are the ones you'll tend to notice more. But getting moderation right requires asking everyone to hold to the same standard regardless of what we personally happen to agree with. We're not perfect at that but we do try hard, and hopefully improve with practice.
Regardless of whether he does or does not sound like a shill ... how do we extend this to things like:
- Pointing out Nimby's in SF housing markets? - Calling someone a salesperson/marketer/advertiser (which I view as offensive...but is often highly-accurate/true) - Pointing out the self-interest in boosters talking up tech/bitcoing/etc
Indeed, in many of these recent observances of "personal attacks", what I view as actually happening is silently assenting to the worldview of an original poster/article and protecting that worldview. Contrary opinions or valuations or interpretations of events are taken as "personal attacks", which can be really quite repugnant when, sometimes, the more morally questionable/civilised position is in fact that of protecting the right to point out that which probably should be attacked in any reasonable discussion/society in the first place: (say, saying Theranos looks like a bunch of scammers/grifters, various startups and SF culture looks eerily like the past practiecs of get-rich-quick-schemes and boosterism)...