It is an attempt at controlling the discussion, and the threat of blocking HN is often intended as a way of controlling the site, ala "I don't like the conversation, so until all comments are favorable I will vaguely threaten to block a single site."
For those clicking down arrow on this -- am I wrong? In fact, the author said, essentially, exactly this by this backing down from their thin threat, encouraged that everyone is dancing to their tune. Personally I find that simply reprehensible.
Instead of moderators saying "oh, better start deleting" when facing claims like this, simply remove the submission and blacklist the domain.
Yes, you are wrong. There's a huge difference between trying to shut down conversation, as you seem to imagine such a reaction to be, and simply trying to keep conversation on someone else's site from spilling over onto your own, which is the most anyone could possibly hope for out of a referrer block.
Personally, if I'd been subject to the sort of ongoing campaign of abuse Ms. Debenham describes, I doubt I'd have held up under it one fourth as well. If I'd found the fortitude to post about it in the first place, seeing the post linked on HN might well be enough to convince me it'd been a bad idea talking about it in public at all. She seems to have found a happy medium between the need to protect herself and the desire to put her experiences out there where they might be of benefit to others, and I say good on her for it.
Someone posts a detailed, intimate story about a horrific sequence of personal experiences onto their Twitter timeline, notices that it's been forwarded to HN - which doesn't have the most sensitive of reputations at the best of times - and is momentarily worried about the possible fallout.
And you're essentially accusing them of trying to pull a cynical PR move. Have a think about that.
I'm "accusing" them only of doing exactly what they indisputably did.
It is sensitive and I applaud them for talking about it and taking control. But when you post something to twitter as a public post, it is a public post and you simply don't have control over the discussion.
As someone who grew up with the internet, as they say, they surely understand this.
People might be mean. People might point out that "bullies are people too". People might post stupid jokes or asinine comments or talk about it being one side of the story.
Avert thy gaze. Geez, when I post technical articles and they get linked here or on Reddit, I don't even read the comments to that because I'm overly sensitive to disagreement. But that disagreement and the normal course of discourse is important, and I understand that I can't suppress it, nor should I.
Which is why I noted that when someone says something that the author said, the submission should be removed, as seems to be their desire regardless. The invisible hand of coercion is corrupting. Alternately HN should abide by some sort of robots.txt agreement or something.
And just to be clear, instead of simply making the post private or researching how to block sites, they instead called out HN specifically, to exactly the expected results: Lots of navel gazing and people talking about how mean HN is, so we really better keep it civil for them. They withdraw the threat. How can anyone argue that isn't explicit, obvious coercion?
To put it another way, the comments on HN are for the service and edification of the members of HN. They are not to serve the interests of the linked content or the people involved. This is a point that so often is missed in these "woe be us" discussions.
> But when you post something to twitter as a public post, it is a public post and you simply don't have control over the discussion.
There are always shades of publicity. If I took any stupid comments / drunk photos of you on Facebook or Twitter and ran a full-page ad in the NYTimes featuring them, would you say, "well, public is public"? That would be just giving into the slippery slope fallacy.
For those clicking down arrow on this -- am I wrong? In fact, the author said, essentially, exactly this by this backing down from their thin threat, encouraged that everyone is dancing to their tune. Personally I find that simply reprehensible.
Instead of moderators saying "oh, better start deleting" when facing claims like this, simply remove the submission and blacklist the domain.