> Fun fact: that’s called “they don’t want you around”. You’re being vibe checked out.
This mindset where the culture war lines have been drawn and anyone who doesn’t get perfectly in line is “vibe checked” out is highly political, even if the claim is that political content is excluded.
The snarky and derisive way it’s presented as “fun fact” and you’ve jumped to the conclusion that the commenter is on the wrong side of the culture war, and therefore a fair target for derision, is actually why I never “vibed” into that site for very long.
People are allowed to build a community that they want to be a part of, and certain rules and base lines for how they expect other people to engage. It’s called “freedom of association”.
What really offends me is the consumer entitlement that people have that make them think that they should be allowed to participate in any community however they see fit.
I’m also all for being able to call out when a community is being excessively political while also trying to claim to be a no-politics zone.
I was a big fan of Lobsters in the early days, but it became apparent that even for apolitical topics you had to walk a very fine line with your comments and avoid anything that might be misinterpreted as wrongspeak.
The site has a long history of finding obscure reasons to ban people. The moderation log is public, but if you try to read the comments that caused the ban they’re all [Removed by moderator] in a very non-public way. The moderators then respond with their own interpretation of events after the account is no longer able to dispute it. It’s another example of double speak where the moderation actions are supposedly public but you’re also not allowed to see the comments that led to the ban.
> What really offends me is the consumer entitlement that people have that make them think that they should be allowed to participate in any community however they see fit.
No entitlement here. My Lobsters account is in good standing since the start. However I believe we’re all entitled to explain our opinions about the moderators, even if it offends you that other people have opinions that disagree with your own.
Anyway, this entire comment thread where you derisively deliver “fun fact” snark and declare other people’s opinions “ridiculous” while ignoring the argument they’re trying to make is ironically a prime example of why Lobste.rs feels so exhausting. If you feel like you’re on the right side of the culture war you feel empowered to be snarky, dismissive, and rude because you think the rules of civil discourse only apply to people on the other side of the dividing lines.
The core of the argument is that they say the rules are X but the actually mean they are Y. That has nothing to do "freedom of association" but simply with being two faced liars. Which people often dislike. And the thing called "freedom of speech" lets me say those last bits. :)
Ironically, if the mods here thought your comment was over the line, it would be removed. I don’t think you understand what freedom of speech actually means lol
And that's fine, this site has rules and the mods follow those rules. I am free to say things but I am not guaranteed a platform to say them on. My usage of the term is just as inaccurate as your usage of "freedom of association." The difference is that I am aware of that and was seeing if you'd bite which you did. Accuracy clearly only matters to you as a way to discredit others but not as a pillar of your own arguments.
Bizarre to see these militant anti-HN commenters seething with anger. It tracks that it comes from accounts with random characters for usernames, and in this case a newly created account that already has net negative comment score.
This mindset where the culture war lines have been drawn and anyone who doesn’t get perfectly in line is “vibe checked” out is highly political, even if the claim is that political content is excluded.
The snarky and derisive way it’s presented as “fun fact” and you’ve jumped to the conclusion that the commenter is on the wrong side of the culture war, and therefore a fair target for derision, is actually why I never “vibed” into that site for very long.