zlacker

Hi.

I'm willing to edit my comment (or outright delete it on my own initiative). I can remove the "Americans...", but much of the rest of it is a comment on the posted link, which is very much about race.

I like the way this place is run, which is to say, I trust the guidance of the moderator team. I'm just not sure how to proceed right now. Also because there's a downthread discussion that could be left without a referent.

Please advise.

>>thanat+(OP)
I think it's ok to leave it. The primary thing is to be more careful in the future. When a topic is divisive, it's important to edit out provocations, including unintentional ones, because otherwise people will react to the provocation rather than to the substantive part of the comment, and that's how we end up with flamewars instead of curious conversations. But I'm repeating myself now.

>>dang+w1
You're probably busy taking care of this thread elsewhere, but I'd appreciate if you gave me a couple of minutes later and pointed out provocative content.

This is a pseudonymous account, but not in a tight way; it's not hard to suss me out either from the content of my comments (how many people have worked on symplectic geometry and in business consulting in the city that I've already mentioned I live in) or following a pattern of usernames. So... I need to be wary that something that gets perceived as off flavor might follow me to real life.

>>dang+w1
Rather than repeating yourself, I think you need to dial down your threshold for paternalistically stepping in to chide commenters for benign statements. I am American, and I took no offense to the commenter's criticism of American culture. I saw nothing nationalistic in the comment, nor was there anything that looked remotely flamebait.

Unless I missed the initial edit that was full of swastika emojis and telling people to "go back to their countries," or something, I'm pretty sure you just pushed someone who was posting in good faith off this site over nothing. While I didn't see the second or any subsequent comments, I found the initial comment worth upvoting. I'm pretty sure you also just marginalized someone in a vulnerable group (those with invisible disabilities) to which I also belong, and, to which you probably do not.

As I have stated in the past, IMO, this site was far, far better when there was little to no active moderation beyond downvoting and flagging by the community.