The rules aren't that rigid to begin with - for example there's always been a bit more leeway for authors to use different wording in the HN submission title (note that I said "a bit more" - it's not a free-for-all). That's one reason we tend to use the word 'guidelines' rather than 'rules', though I do switch between the two.
Beyond that, though, it's just different when kids show up here. They should be welcomed and encouraged. That's a basic norm of kindness (that's also in the guidelines and is a more important standard we should all be held to).
Unfortunately it's easy for the opposite to happen. Matters of age and youth evoke strong emotions in people. Given the long tail dynamic of large internet forums, that can bring out a lot of strangeness and negativity [1]. People react out of associations from their own history that have nothing to do with the project the kid is sharing. It can easily turn into a many-sided WTF that makes the community seem weird, bitter, and nasty.
That's exactly the experience that HN should not be providing so we—both commenters and moderators—should take extra care to avoid it.
We should avoid it in the general case too, of course, but given that kids are more vulnerable, are (almost by definition) new here, and that the emotional associations that come up are stronger and more unpredictable, I think this is kind of a big deal.
[1] In case it isn't clear to someone what I mean by 'long tail dynamic': I mean that if (1) anyone can post a comment, and (2) the forum is large enough, then even if 99.9% of users have a completely positive reaction, the subset who for whatever reason have a negative reaction will still be large in number, and unfortunately these users are often the most motivated to comment. This dynamic affects every HN thread to the degree that a topic touches people's feelings (and what topic doesn't?) But it seems to particularly affect threads involving children or adolescents, and those are also occasions when this dynamic can do a lot of harm. Therefore these cases need special handling. It's not right for any of us to impose, however unintentionally, our own past difficulties on kids who are just being kids.
That's because it got flagged enough to become [dead], which means it's only visible to users who turn on the 'showdead' setting in their profile. If you turn that on, you'll be able to read the text.
All: if you turn 'showdead' on, please don't forget that you did so, because we sometimes get emails from people asking "how can you possibly condone $horrible-comment appearing on HN?" when in reality the account has been banned for years. (Not talking about this case, but it happens sometimes.)
p.s. and thanks for the kind reply, I appreciate it.
dang, I appreciate the long winded explanation and how you took control over this. Not just for being on my side, but that's exactly what people are missing when it comes to HN posting.
They somehow pulled the hammer on me because I included my age in the title (which makes 40% of the case to my project).
Everything i wrote here is original, and almost all of the feedback is seemingly positive/constructive for the good.
I get the feeling that if I didn't include my age (which, again it's the main thing) this submission wouldn't have received much attention. big thanks to learning copywriting beforehand.
The rules aren't that rigid to begin with - for example there's always been a bit more leeway for authors to use different wording in the HN submission title (note that I said "a bit more" - it's not a free-for-all). That's one reason we tend to use the word 'guidelines' rather than 'rules', though I do switch between the two.
Beyond that, though, it's just different when kids show up here. They should be welcomed and encouraged. That's a basic norm of kindness (that's also in the guidelines and is a more important standard we should all be held to).
Unfortunately it's easy for the opposite to happen. Matters of age and youth evoke strong emotions in people. Given the long tail dynamic of large internet forums, that can bring out a lot of strangeness and negativity [1]. People react out of associations from their own history that have nothing to do with the project the kid is sharing. It can easily turn into a many-sided WTF that makes the community seem weird, bitter, and nasty.
That's exactly the experience that HN should not be providing so we—both commenters and moderators—should take extra care to avoid it.
We should avoid it in the general case too, of course, but given that kids are more vulnerable, are (almost by definition) new here, and that the emotional associations that come up are stronger and more unpredictable, I think this is kind of a big deal.
[1] In case it isn't clear to someone what I mean by 'long tail dynamic': I mean that if (1) anyone can post a comment, and (2) the forum is large enough, then even if 99.9% of users have a completely positive reaction, the subset who for whatever reason have a negative reaction will still be large in number, and unfortunately these users are often the most motivated to comment. This dynamic affects every HN thread to the degree that a topic touches people's feelings (and what topic doesn't?) But it seems to particularly affect threads involving children or adolescents, and those are also occasions when this dynamic can do a lot of harm. Therefore these cases need special handling. It's not right for any of us to impose, however unintentionally, our own past difficulties on kids who are just being kids.