Okay, well my goal here was to communicate a benefit of the doubt most respectful interpretation of the moderators decision, and how it can be justified by the official HN guidelines.
While I could have been a lot more clear from the start, I think I've done my part. You can disagree with me and assume bad faith if you want. That's your choice.
It's revealing that you're repeatedly framing your decision as someone else's. Did you not see the flag button that you yourself pressed? And I'm assuming you did press it, because you so vehemently argue in favor of flagging this submission.
> It's revealing that you're repeatedly framing your decision as someone else's
Yes it's revealing that I was confused about how HN works.
I did flag it, and I don't deny that. I explained in another comment how I thought it was 70/30 off/on topic. However my confusion stems from the fact that I thought moderators made the final decision to flag a submission. I just read about it and now realize that users drive flagging which alerts moderators and then they choose whether to set it as dead. At least now that's how I think it works.
So yes, a lot of my comments didn't make any sense. All of my interpretation of the guidelines I stand by, but my misunderstanding about the flagging mechanism totally skewed a bunch of my comments and I no longer agree with them. If I could, I would edit them.
I feel pretty silly about all of this. Part of the reason I was so adamant about my stance is that I've had comments flagged in the past, which at the time I felt wasn't appropriate (I really thought fell within the guidelines) and I mistakenly thought the moderators had done. So over time I adapted my interpretation of the guidelines, which is what I was representing here.
Now I realize I was being censored by who knows who based on their interpretation of the guidelines, or who knows why, not the people who run this site. Worse, I let it bias how I use the site and now propogated that pattern out on to others.
I really don't know what to think about all this as there is a lot to unpack and reflect on, but I've unflagged this submission.
Thanks again for clarifying how flagging works for me it's made a big difference.
While I could have been a lot more clear from the start, I think I've done my part. You can disagree with me and assume bad faith if you want. That's your choice.