I'm sorry, but what you posted were obviously flamewar comments. "I have simply posted a historic fact in a neutral way" is a misleading description for two reasons: (1) "facts" is a red herring (see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for explanation of that); and (2) a drive-by one-liner on an extremely inflammatory topic is not at all "neutral". (Also, (3) what you posted appears not to have been a fact, and when someone pointed that out you responded with "I'm not here to nitpick or defend genocide" - more flamewar behavior.)
It's not at all surprising that this made the flamewar worse—a neutral observer would expect precisely that, and that means you're responsible for the effects, whether it was your intent to produce them or not. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
If you don't see how that's the case, I can understand why you might feel like a victim, but such perceptions have a lot of cognitive bias in them. It's hard for people (all of us) not to underestimate the provocations contained in our own comments (by at least 10x!), and all too easy to see the negative contributions of others. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
As for downvoted comments, which ones are you talking about specifically? When users do the kind of thing you're describing, we often remove downvoting rights from them. I didn't see it when I took a quick look, though.
I posted a Wikipedia article about an historically established genocide (the use of the term is not mine) against the white population. That population was wiped out.
The article says "By the end of April 1804, some 3,000 to 5,000 people had been killed and the white Haitians were practically eradicated, excluding a select group of whites who were given amnesty.". Someone else posted a link to an academic article that states that former slaves "eradicated Haiti's white population in 1804".
Pointing out that a few polish troops were spared in order to try to discredit me and my summary of the article that all the white population was massacred (which is accurate on the whole and not a "drive-by one-liner") is a nitpick to prevent discussion, and it worked.
It's disappointing that you're siding with that behaviour and that you're accusing me of flamewar, or even of provocation. That's a sad testament to how much the scope of possible discussion has narrowed. As mentioned, I really only posted it for historical purposes on the messy past, and present, of Haiti as part of, I thought, a mature discussion. I didn't even think that this was an inflammatory topic, and in fact I still don't that's why I'm very unpleasantly surprised.
> As for downvoted comments, which ones are you talking about specifically?
All my comments that were downvotable (so less than 24h old, no matter what discussion) were downvoted in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, some time after I posted the comments in this thread.
It's not at all surprising that this made the flamewar worse—a neutral observer would expect precisely that, and that means you're responsible for the effects, whether it was your intent to produce them or not. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
If you don't see how that's the case, I can understand why you might feel like a victim, but such perceptions have a lot of cognitive bias in them. It's hard for people (all of us) not to underestimate the provocations contained in our own comments (by at least 10x!), and all too easy to see the negative contributions of others. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
As for downvoted comments, which ones are you talking about specifically? When users do the kind of thing you're describing, we often remove downvoting rights from them. I didn't see it when I took a quick look, though.