I’m not talking about new top level comments on a [dead] post. Those have always been closed. I’m talking about new replies to live comments on a [dead] post. Those were possible until relatively recently. I don’t remember any notice of this change, or reasoning/justification for such change, which has now clearly occurred.

If we’re the high bit, why are changes affecting the entire community shoved through on the down-low? A moderation log and changelog announcing changes to how the site works would improve transparency and increase trust and accountability in HN. This speculation is entirely avoidable, but somehow the opaque structure of moderation on HN seems intentional. Most mod actions on HN probably fall under anti-abuse measures, and perhaps only bad actors were bothering to reply to live comments on dead posts. But seeing how hard it is to even find dead posts if you weren’t already aware of them, I’m not sure this was a problem for users, as they probably weren’t seeing them in the first place, but it could easily be a problem for HN.

I think your explanation is most likely because it assumes the least, but considering the way the guidelines have evolved, I’m willing to believe that this was being actively used by bad actors, and not simply a change that was easily justified once you saw fit to do so.

> It has never been possible to reply to [dead] posts, and nothing to do with the mechanics of posting has changed in a long time.

I am referring to replying to live comments on [dead] posts, which I am positive was possible before, because I do it fairly often until yesterday or so when I tried and it didn’t work.

As a journalist, this impacts my ability to interact with the public and corroborate information in the public good. As a HN user, it has a chilling effect on legitimate public discourse on this site.

It appears that the confusion on my part is that [flagged][dead] is a different state to [dead], which is my mistake if I have misunderstood this distinction, and yet one could be forgiven for not knowing things that are never explained in the guidelines or FAQ.

When trying to explain my situation and experience to elicidate this distinction from others, they somehow missed it, and I missed what they were saying. Context was unclear and I assumed I understood that they meant what I thought I was saying, so I didn’t see their words as being incompatible with the statements I was making. I’ll accept responsibility for that, because it was unclear to others why I disagreed with them.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever been able to reply to a [dead] post that wasn’t [flagged][dead], but I will take your word for it that I can’t. I never paid attention to that distinction before, but now I can, now that I’m aware that there is one.

Does that seem like the source of the misunderstanding of what I was trying to say on your end? I can imagine to you it’s obvious what is or isn’t possible, but given how [dead] posts don’t seem to be indexed on Algolia, researching my own experience and that of others using HN in a historical manner to validate my own understanding of HN is hard.

Are [dead] posts and associated comments part of the API? How can I even research this if they’re not? If they are, is the API the only way to see them without manually incrementing post IDs? I’ve never used the API, but would be curious to try.

Can’t say I was surprised to be wrong, though I do make every effort to be right and accept correction graciously, and so I must admit my fault here, in sum and part.

I will also say that other HN users who aren’t mods have a weird interpretation of the guidelines as being proscriptive rather than descriptive. I don’t feel that’s what the intent or language of the guidelines actually supports, however.

I have been wrong before, in this thread, other threads, other posts, and I reserve the right to be wrong again, though never intentionally and always consistent with the guidelines as best as I understand them.

I am trying to post on HN in such a way as to encourage others to post their best. When I receive comments like I did in reply to this post, I grow as a person, and also understand a little more what people mean when they say “HN is mean”.

When my earnest, well-meaning post is met with personal attacks from senior users of HN, I can take it; I’m not new here. I just don’t want to find myself contributing negatively, and I managed to do that anyway, despite my attempts to the contrary. It’s hard to make good posts, and I certainly don’t always make it easy for myself or others, though I am doing my best with the replies I have to work with.