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I can't speak for the parent comment but I've had the same problem myself in discussing this. I would actually love to have to stop repeating myself, but the cr

I can't speak for the parent comment but I've had the same problem myself in discussing this. I would actually love to have to stop repeating myself, but the crypto CEOs keep also repeating the same marketing lines over and over again with reckless abandon and then a new group of people reads it and pops up the next day asking the same questions. Sometimes I can even directly map some comments to a series of tweets from a CEO just by searching and it's really frustrating. Dan, you should know this as well as anyone: it's easy for some startup to dump out unverified claims all over the internet. It takes continued and constant effort to refute those claims. So what can we do here? It feels like the amount of hype that's (still) happening is inherently not conducive to good discussion.

dang 4y ago
If both sides are just repeating the same points, then there's no diff, and if there's no diff then it's off topic for this site. Diffs are what's interesting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- hnthrow1010 4y ago
  Ok, thanks. I get what you mean, but English language diffs can easily be falsified with a thesaurus :) A better analogy might be that every comment should be like a unique algorithm, or something along those lines.
  - feet 4y ago
    A diff of word meaning, not a diff of word choice.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  Then ban positive promotion of crypto, as a whole. You can't, because you want a site that values free speech. But any site that values free speech is going to have to repeatedly answer the same basic questions on Crypto and Communism. It's going to have to repeatedly say "No, we're not trying to censor you because of chosen group X that claims to be innate, we're banning you because of actual crimes you have committed" It's fine to argue about crimes in the sense of whether they should be illegal and whether people have actually committed them. At some point, you need to acknowledge that criminals will continue to argue their points, and that you either need to ban them or acknowledge that the same arguments will be repeated against them.
  - pvg 4y ago
    If you think a submission is bad you can flag it. You can also mail the mods if you think it needs more than that. That can actually reduce the incidence of bad submissions, railing against them repetitively in every thread just feeds them.
    - GauntletWizard 4y ago
      I agree. It has been flagged. It has been marked flagged. It has been re-added to the front page. If Dang wants people to stop arguing about it, then the flag moderation framework needs to stop putting crypto back on the front page. That may well involve banning people who are otherwise good commenters, like when China issues come up.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    This is a website where everyone gets some of their compensation in lottery tickets at a smaller company selling a service to a larger ad conglomerate with fraudulent conversion metrics, or they get paid half theyre comp in easily convertible shares at the larger ad conglomerate with fraudulent conversion metrics I really cant spot a reason to treat “crypto” differently The similarity being that there is just other aspects of these projects and technology to focus on, that can be interesting
  - dang 4y ago
    You're making some incorrect assumptions here. The kind of site we want is described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The sort version is we want curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest. That rules out excessive repetition, among other things. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- labrador 4y ago
  I suggest we stick to the technical aspects and what ideas people have for using the technology. it rather than veering off into money and fraud, which are highly charged topics. I'm genuinely curious about how this new tech will change things.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    How can you possibly discuss Bitcoin without the topics of money and fraud ? It's intrinsic to what Bitcoin is.
    - andirk 4y ago
      Money, sure. Fraud? No. That is too broad of a topic to require its inclusion with BTC. Almost every scam/phish/SPAM I receive is USD-desiring. And you are aware of this yet insist BTC is the main fraud coin.
      - inversalAutoDoc 4y ago
        The mapping is the other way around. That most fraud requests USD is indisputable, but looking at it the other way, a disproportionate amount of the movement of Crypto (incl. bitcoin) is fraud-related compared to traditional currencies [assuming we define fraud separately from corruption.] This disproportionate share may be less than it appears when you take into account all of the things that Crypto is typically not used for, but the fact remains that there are daily stories about even large Crypto proponents being defrauded. That this fraudulant activity is enabled by the underlying mechanics (i.e. the decentralization and lack of a verifying authority [i.e. the primary draw of Crypto afaik]) of the platform is worthy of being brought up when discussing the technological merits of the platform.
        andirk 4y ago
        Yes one of BTC's main features _and_ biggest issue is: decentralization. Reminds me of when people go full libertarian and suggest no government intervention whatsoever, and then someone suggests they move to the governmentless land of Somalia that is anything but freedom and paradise. With great power comes great responsibility; decentralization is a loaded gun. Use at your own risk!
mbar84 4y ago
It's like a discussion on abortion. There are fundamental disagreements that have little to do with technologoy. Everybody keeps repeating their conclusions and predictions, only time will tell who is right.

dang 4y ago

If both sides are just repeating the same points, then there's no diff, and if there's no diff then it's off topic for this site. Diffs are what's interesting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

hnthrow1010 4y ago
Ok, thanks. I get what you mean, but English language diffs can easily be falsified with a thesaurus :) A better analogy might be that every comment should be like a unique algorithm, or something along those lines.
- feet 4y ago
  A diff of word meaning, not a diff of word choice.
GauntletWizard 4y ago
Then ban positive promotion of crypto, as a whole. You can't, because you want a site that values free speech. But any site that values free speech is going to have to repeatedly answer the same basic questions on Crypto and Communism. It's going to have to repeatedly say "No, we're not trying to censor you because of chosen group X that claims to be innate, we're banning you because of actual crimes you have committed" It's fine to argue about crimes in the sense of whether they should be illegal and whether people have actually committed them. At some point, you need to acknowledge that criminals will continue to argue their points, and that you either need to ban them or acknowledge that the same arguments will be repeated against them.
- pvg 4y ago
  If you think a submission is bad you can flag it. You can also mail the mods if you think it needs more than that. That can actually reduce the incidence of bad submissions, railing against them repetitively in every thread just feeds them.
  - GauntletWizard 4y ago
    I agree. It has been flagged. It has been marked flagged. It has been re-added to the front page. If Dang wants people to stop arguing about it, then the flag moderation framework needs to stop putting crypto back on the front page. That may well involve banning people who are otherwise good commenters, like when China issues come up.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  This is a website where everyone gets some of their compensation in lottery tickets at a smaller company selling a service to a larger ad conglomerate with fraudulent conversion metrics, or they get paid half theyre comp in easily convertible shares at the larger ad conglomerate with fraudulent conversion metrics I really cant spot a reason to treat “crypto” differently The similarity being that there is just other aspects of these projects and technology to focus on, that can be interesting
- dang 4y ago
  You're making some incorrect assumptions here. The kind of site we want is described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The sort version is we want curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest. That rules out excessive repetition, among other things. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
labrador 4y ago
I suggest we stick to the technical aspects and what ideas people have for using the technology. it rather than veering off into money and fraud, which are highly charged topics. I'm genuinely curious about how this new tech will change things.
- threeseed 4y ago
  How can you possibly discuss Bitcoin without the topics of money and fraud ? It's intrinsic to what Bitcoin is.
  - andirk 4y ago
    Money, sure. Fraud? No. That is too broad of a topic to require its inclusion with BTC. Almost every scam/phish/SPAM I receive is USD-desiring. And you are aware of this yet insist BTC is the main fraud coin.
    - inversalAutoDoc 4y ago
      The mapping is the other way around. That most fraud requests USD is indisputable, but looking at it the other way, a disproportionate amount of the movement of Crypto (incl. bitcoin) is fraud-related compared to traditional currencies [assuming we define fraud separately from corruption.] This disproportionate share may be less than it appears when you take into account all of the things that Crypto is typically not used for, but the fact remains that there are daily stories about even large Crypto proponents being defrauded. That this fraudulant activity is enabled by the underlying mechanics (i.e. the decentralization and lack of a verifying authority [i.e. the primary draw of Crypto afaik]) of the platform is worthy of being brought up when discussing the technological merits of the platform.
      - andirk 4y ago
        Yes one of BTC's main features _and_ biggest issue is: decentralization. Reminds me of when people go full libertarian and suggest no government intervention whatsoever, and then someone suggests they move to the governmentless land of Somalia that is anything but freedom and paradise. With great power comes great responsibility; decentralization is a loaded gun. Use at your own risk!

mbar84 4y ago

It's like a discussion on abortion. There are fundamental disagreements that have little to do with technologoy. Everybody keeps repeating their conclusions and predictions, only time will tell who is right.