I agree with you that it would be better for HN if Chinese users, and users of Chinese background, could share more of their experiences and observations. I've been arguing that for a long time, as I believe you know. But it's not super cool of you to be making that argument as long as your own contributions to HN are undermining that possibility. We're each responsible for how we individually affect the collective situation, and pointing the finger at others—even if they're behaving badly, and even though they're benefitting from an unfair, lopsided fight—is not helpful.
HN will continue to trend towards having 2-5 content-free "china bad amirite" threads a week with an echo chamber of people who don't know any history of the region saying completely nonsensical things. People who know a little more, or who point out things like "the belt and road initiative isn't a literal road and can't be used to invade someone" will be banned for contributing to flamewar.
For example, in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29655341[1]. You can't be everywhere, there will always 10x comments like that for every 'bad' comment going the other way, and your even-handedness means that 9/10 of them are implicitly judged as fine, acceptable and encouraging intellectual something-or-other.
[1] Check that guy's history, he writes Xi Jinping as Hsi Chunping.. his commitment to ideology is so strong that he wade-giles'd Xi, lol
This is a good example of how people jump to conclusions and assume the worst about each other. It's no more ok when you do that than when other users do it, even if you are (or feel you are) part of a minority that gets treated unfairly.
I understand and empathize about how frustrating this is—but lashing out at the very people who are bending over backwards to try to bring some semblance of tolerance and neutrality to an impossible situation is neither nice nor helpful.
I've discussed the lopsided dynamic of these conversations with you many times. The question is how to deal with it. No matter how frustrating it is, it's important not to respond to ignorance by losing your cool, becoming abusive, and so on. When you do that, you're reinforcing the very situation you deplore, and by that you actually make yourself responsible for the status quo. Each of us has a small quantum of energy to contribute, and it's important not to use yours to cause further harm (even when it's for deep reasons).
It's much better to respond to ignorance patiently and with good information, seeking points of connection and opportunities to treat the other person better than they expect and maybe better than they deserve (or you feel they deserve). Then you're investing your quantum in a good way. Also, it's good to remember that we're all ignorant, just about different things, and we all share the same hard-wiring that causes people to project bad things into dark spaces and thus treat each other poorly. If you happen to know more about $topic and thus can see how ignorant others are, that's not because you're better than them, or any different from them in the end. It's an accident of circumstance.
I didn't start posting to whine about being banned a few months ago, I was more concerned about the immediate thread.. but since you brought up my posts, you specifically told me while banning me that civility wasn't "good enough". I was doing this exact recommended pattern of responding patiently and civilly at the moment that you banned me.
Maybe I'm just really oblivious, or a congenitally bad poster, but what would be good enough? It's irrelevant since I'm banned but I always like to self-improve if I can, there must be something I'm missing here. If you're busy or don't see this, no biggie.