Edit: I took a quick look at your recent comment history and it seems just fine (other than https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42713605, also in this thread). If you'd please post like that and not like this, that would be good.
Its not ok to over-moderate against jokes, especially when you can't even point to the guideline that was broken here (though, I'm sure you could take any comment from anyone and find at least one guideline that was broken. Every comment in this thread could be banned for "political or ideological battle") (emphasis again on the word "guide" in "guideline"; are these bannable rules, or are they guidelines?)
The voting system exists and works more than well enough to bury bad comments. That's why my comment up there is at -4; it was bad. Problem is solved.
In this case it's easy to point to a specific guideline:
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
I'm sorry that I didn't understand that you were joking. The problem, though, is, that many other readers won't understand that either and some will react by getting triggered (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42711424 and the replies there), so in the end it sadly doesn't make much difference.
As for upvoting, I wish you were right about that—it would be so much less work—but alas, the voting system alone isn't sufficient for this place to survive. (Past explanations about that if anyone cares: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...)
Oh, sorry if I overreacted. I'm sensitive on this point because I want to protect accounts like yours and I know how strong the forces are that push them towards provocation, then flamewar.
By "accounts like yours" I mean ones that express minority or contrarian views on any divisive topic. That is valuable to the community but, unfortunately, there is a lot of pressure on anyone who wants to comment that way, and it often doesn't go very well. We've seen this over and over.
Is this just an attempt to dismiss or do you actually believe a real human could have a differing opinion without being paid by a foreign government? At what point do comments like this indicate schizophrenia
I would suggest you please take a look at the HN guidelines [1]. In particular:
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
