zlacker

>>themgt+(OP)
I've never heard of "commonsense.news" before, but it is by Bari Weiss[0] who is trying to create an "anti-cancel culture," "anti-woke" University called the University of Austin[1]. Her Wikipedia on her history kind of speaks for itself, in particular the "2017–2020" section[0].

Why does this matter? Because most of the articles claims are based on "spoke to us" quotes from anonymous staffers which cannot be independently verified. So it falls to the reputation of those publishing and their journalistic integrity/process, and at that point I leave it to you to make up your own mind.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Austin

>>Someon+87
On HN we try to go by article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... The author names here are probably more important than whoever owns the site. Their credentials are on the line if the sources they claim to be quoting are made up. That doesn't prove anything, of course, but one's always guessing with these things, and readers need to make up their own minds.

I understand the argument you're making, and it's not an obvious call, but I think it comes with more downside than upside, at least for HN. It's a trope of tribal internet argument (I mean in general—not talking about you here) to follow a "DAG of shame" in which you hop from any node to the most shameful associated thing, with the intention of discrediting the node from which you started. The problem is that each of those hops loses a lot of information, and one ends up in places that aren't particularly relevant, like whatever that university project is.

What's bad about this for HN is that it makes threads more generic, predictable, and repetitive. It also polarizes discussion along the most intense axis. All of this makes discussion less interesting and more inflammatory.

So while it's not an obvious call (more like 60-40 than 80-20) I think we're better off as a community to resist the habit of replacing topic X with the biggest or most shameful other-topic-Y that the dots connect to. It's not that there's no value in it, but it's the wrong move, given what we're trying to optimize for (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).

>>dang+KQ
Thanks for fighting against ad hominem rhetorics

>>gpt5+kS
Ad hom is use of an irrelevant characteristic to impeach a witness or malign a viewpoint.

"You wear funny hats so you're not a credible expert on waffle irons" would be an ad hominem.[1]

Noting the reputation and past history of a speaker or source, or noting well-known rhetorical red flags (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/sophist_refut.1.1.html) is what we'd now call a strong Bayesian prior. It's not a proof that a source, speaker, document, or publication is wrong, but it's a fairly strong grounds for suspecting that might be the case.

https://www.thoughtco.com/ad-hominem-fallacy-1689062

And in a world in which asymmetric costs favour bullshit, it's a useful and often necessary approach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law

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Notes:

1. In practice, "funny hats" might well be references to non-Western clothing (see The Little Prince for a fictional illustration), or speech, or gender, or religous affiliation (religious exclusion was common in top US universities well into the 1970s). It's still practiced in many regards. What this ignores is the specific capabilities or validity of claims or methods.

>>dredmo+7U
That is not a correct use of ad hominem. Translated literally, it is "against the person," which is what an ad hominem attack is -- an argument against the bearer of the idea that does not argue against the idea itself.

An argument against the idea was almost presented (anonymous staffers whose quotes cannot be independently verified) but was let down by its conclusion (it falls to the reputation.)

There was nothing in OP's argument that contradicted the claims that were made other than those that go against the reputation of the author, ergo even if they are valid, they are definitely _ad hominem_.