Kudos to you for responding exactly as I asked! That is rare to begin with, and more so when I'm being irritable. Big respect.
I can see how using the word "good" was confusing, but I just meant the opposite of "comments that were unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or otherwise broke the site guidelines". It just boils down to: what fits the guidelines or not.
> Wondering how does one tell what is ‘good’ in your mind
Since you can't read my mind (at least I assume you can't, and if you could you wouldn't have this question), that's not doable. What you can do is assess things according to your own reading of the site guidelines. If you assimilate https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and evaluate comments based on that and not just on what you like/dislike, then I imagine you won't end up too far from where the mods are, because that's what we're also trying to do.
I'm sure there will always be individual cases where we disagree—even tomhow and I disagree on individual cases—but they
should be a minority.
If there are specific cases where you think we got it wrong, I'd be interested to see links, and we're always willing to hear a contrary argument.
Completely meta and possibly out-of-place, but this thread was I think my first encounter with dang (the human), and, based on it, I'm filled with respect for him.
I have had plenty of disagreements with dang over my time on this site, yet I am the first to claim he has been instrumental in making HN as good as it is, notwithstanding the deluge of posts, bots, trolls, and other ungovernable people.
Well I mean for starters, one might disagree whether all members of "the community" should actually be part of it/be catered to.
I mean it's kinda hard to kick out the VC brainrot get-rich-quick sanity-is-tertiary scum when you're literally housed under a ycombinator subdomain, but that is technically also a choice that people might see as controversial.
It is no coincidence lawyering is a lucrative career, even when (in most countries) it is simply about interpreting what’s written in the big book.
Until you rewrite the guidelines in an unambiguous programming language (Lisp will do), and provide a system to discern whether a comment falls afoul of them, your personal interpretation of the Word will often differ from someone else’s.
I can see how using the word "good" was confusing, but I just meant the opposite of "comments that were unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or otherwise broke the site guidelines". It just boils down to: what fits the guidelines or not.
> Wondering how does one tell what is ‘good’ in your mind
Since you can't read my mind (at least I assume you can't, and if you could you wouldn't have this question), that's not doable. What you can do is assess things according to your own reading of the site guidelines. If you assimilate https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and evaluate comments based on that and not just on what you like/dislike, then I imagine you won't end up too far from where the mods are, because that's what we're also trying to do.
I'm sure there will always be individual cases where we disagree—even tomhow and I disagree on individual cases—but they should be a minority.
If there are specific cases where you think we got it wrong, I'd be interested to see links, and we're always willing to hear a contrary argument.