It was certainly a lame thing to put in an HN comment but (a) you're misquoting it and (b) I don't think most people would read it as "an actual violent threat".

Yeah, I think I screwed up big time.

I'm really at a loss for how it came across as any kind of suggestion about something that might happen in the future (a key perquisite for anything to be a threat). Even that aside, for it to be a threat, that would somehow mean the original statement it was referring to was threatening people with critical thinking bells... that seems nonsensical to me.

So again: I definitely screwed up here, and I'm horribly embarrassed by it all, but I'm at a loss to see how this could have been interpreted as a threat of any kind. I'm really sorry that it was.

Your quote:

"""There's a difference between critical thinking bells and having your bell rung. ;-)"""

This is essentially your argument:

"""

There's a difference between critical thinking bells and having your brains blown out with a critical thinking shotgun and some eight gauge ideas and buried in an unmarked grave of introspection!

Can't IMAGINE how you could interpret that in a negative way! """

You're either calling me stupid.... or implying that you're going to violently attack me.

You are correct, you did screw up...what you said is flamebait bannable offense and you deserve to be permanently banned immediately for violent threats to others or insulting others baselessly.

Please ban this person immediately @dang.

There should be ZERO tolerance for violence or insults.

I was definitely implying there your thinking on this matter was impaired (which isn't the same as calling you stupid, but it is close), and I thought even if you had blanked out the "having your bell rung" that part would have been pretty obvious from the context. Clearly I was very wrong.

Again, I'm sorry. I clearly didn't phrase things well, and I shouldn't have made the statement regardless. I would remove that sentence from the comment if I could.

Their quote:

"""There's a difference between critical thinking bells and having your bell rung. ;-)""""

Theyre either baselessly calling me stupid or threatening me...both are bannable offenses...and I'm getting the warning...

If this was a truly fair site that person would be banned.

I'm sorry, but I have to call em as I see em and it seems to me that you're the person who's out of line here. cbsmith obviously didn't mean the comment the way you took it (nor do I believe most people would read it that way), and then tried extra hard to apologize and all you've done is pile on.

I understand how random things on the internet can be triggering but it's each of our responsibility to process those reactions in ourselves and not just vent them into the commons. Please stop posting like this.

You're the commenter that I warned because, as I explained in the warning (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27524628), you have a history of breaking the site guidelines. I mean, I had to tell you this 8 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24594431) and you've just kept doing it and we've had to warn you several times since then. This is not cool.

I do not think you're a bad HN user (otherwise we'd have banned you a long time ago). The problem is that you have a history of overreacting and then taking it out on other users. That's not cool and needs to stop.

You've responded to this latest request to stop posting flamewar comments by posting a whole flurry more of them. I'm not going to ban you for that because, like I said, I know how things can be activating, and everyone goes on tilt sometimes. But please fix this going forward. I don't want to ban you but we can't have accounts making a habit of breaking the rules here.

> cbsmith obviously didn't mean the comment the way you took it (nor do I believe most people would read it that way), and then tried extra hard to apologize and all you've done is pile on.

Thanks for saying that dang. I really screwed up and I'm trying my best to make up for it, but I was starting to question whether I was even doing that right.

Your apology was saying you meant that I was stupid and it wasn't a violent threat.

Some apology!

Please stop.

You must have missed it, but I also said, multiple times, I was wrong for making a derogatory statement.

I will also emphasize again that I never said you were stupid. I implied some of your statements indicated flawed thinking, and explained the flaws I perceived. As you yourself have pointed out, smart people can be wrong; pointing out a perceived mistake in your thought process isn't saying anything about you.

You've been pretty incendiary in your comments about what I've written. Applying the same standard here, do you feel you've been engaging in personal attacks?

Please don't keep replying. It's repetitive and just leads to more.

"You must have missed it, but I also said, multiple times, I was wrong for making a derogatory statement."

That's an established fact not an apology.

Glad you admitted it wish you could get a warning from the mods as well.

> He apologized... by saying that his comment meant that I was STUPID..and wasn't a violent threat!

So I've got to ask this, because I'm curious: is it inconceivable to you that someone could have made a mistake in their reasoning, and pointing that out wouldn't constitute a personal attack or a violent threat?

I'd point out that you've made a LOT of statements about me being wrong (and lot of other more colourful language). Did I misunderstand? Were you making personal attacks or violent threats towards me?

I don't want to ban you. I do think this would be a good use for a probation feature if we had one.