Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've broken more than one of the site guidelines in this thread, particularly the ones that ask you not to insinuate astroturfing and not to go further into flamewar. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and abstain from doing these things here, hard though that can be. The internet reflex where people assume that only trolls, bots, or shills can explain something they dislike online, is o…
> Please review... Sure. Will have a look at the guidelines and appreciate the pointer, as well as the job you have to do. > The internet reflex where people assume that only trolls, bots, or shills can explain something they dislike online, is off topic here. It has also become so self-parodically common that one can only hope it will jump the shark soon. But, I don't appreciate the additional editorializing and don…
When it comes to users accusing each other of astroturfing, shilling, spying, and so on, the only conclusion that fits the data is that people are imagining things. In reality, the community is simply divided and users have opposing views. Unfortunately, when my view is sufficiently obnoxious to your side or vice versa, the assumption of good faith evaporates and people reach for more sinister explanations. We can speculate about why, but it's clear that users are projecting those sinister explanations onto fellow users. The more divisive the topic, the more opposed people's views become and the more harshly they express them, leading to more projection, accusation, and division. A vicious loop.
This is especially toxic to HN because HN is a single community where everybody sees the same threads. Here you are more likely to run into views that you strongly dislike than you are on sites where communities partition into like-minded factions. Even when discussions on HN are more thoughtful than these other places, the fact that you're part of one big group—everybody, instead of mostly your own tribe—makes them feel less so.
When people post aggressive remarks to HN, they're not just bonding with their own tribe, they're simultaneously broadcasting to the other side, who take the harshness like a punch. All sides do this, so all sides feel punched. This is painful and one can't help but react internally. I believe that the accusatory reactions are self-protective. If you're a spy or a shill, that explains whatever you say and I needn't give it any credence. Unfortunately, these defensive reactions are also offensive ones, so we get an escalatory cycle. If HN is to avoid being ripped apart, we need a rule against such accusations. Therefore we do have such a rule.
1. There are other contexts on HN where we do find manipulation: usually startups or projects trying to promote themselves, but occasionally also more sophisticated astroturfing that appears to involve larger companies.
2. More on this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403438. For a specific example, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19404162.
p.s. I'm sorry that felt like I was targeting you specifically. My intention was only to say something about a general phenomenon which I've written about many times already: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....