Or where rude just means "rude". Certainly, various geek social dysfunctions tend to get a free pass (empty snark, ridiculously aggressive tone, ignoring most

Or where rude just means "rude". Certainly, various geek social dysfunctions tend to get a free pass (empty snark, ridiculously aggressive tone, ignoring most of what someone's said to knee-jerk on minutia, etc.), but you'll get that in any geek crowd. HN does tend to react properly to other forms of rudeness. I like votes as a clue to the reactions of the people reading threads, myself. I don't always agree with or approve of the reactions (this place is not exactly great when gender issues come up), but that's just dealing with people. Mind, sometimes it just isn't worth dealing with people - there's nothing wrong with skipping the chatter if it's not useful to you. (Personally, my main gripe is that people tend to vastly prefer a short, pithy remark over a clearly-written and more nuanced bit of, say, anything more than this comment's length. To see an offhand remark I spent a second typing get double the votes of something I've more seriously considered irks a bit.)