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I suspect that if he had left out the "yay Open source" bit and just said, "This is why I am slowly backing off blah" he wouldn't get as many downvotes, though

I suspect that if he had left out the "yay Open source" bit and just said, "This is why I am slowly backing off blah" he wouldn't get as many downvotes, though it would still be a vacuous statement. Sure it is a matter of tone, but downvoting for tone does happen and I am not sure it is a bad thing. As it is he sounds like (NB: not saying he is, just sounds like) some immature fellow passing by from reddit knocking Open Source/Linux without adding any value to the discussion. I would expect a comment like "Yay Apple! Yay Steve Jobs! This is why I don't use OSX" to be downvoted too. And even without the "yay" bit, his comment doesn't add much and has close to zero information content. It is equivalent to someone saying "this" or "upvoted" or "+ 1" or "me too" to something someone else said. Such comments do get downvoted on HN. I don't have an opinion either way though I wouldn't care if it got downvoted to -4 or stays at +1. Anything above that would be scary!

jacquesm 17y ago
> Anything above that would be scary! We agree on that :) I tend to look at the factual content of a contribution and less at the tone. It's like the RMS/Miguel de Icaza thing but in miniature, if you 'leave' open source after having used it you're almost worse than if you were a windows user all your life long, and I think the moderation in part demonstrates that. If it's just about the tone that's different, but since 'tone' is hard to gage it's a bad reason to moderate for, unless it is crystal clear that the words are offensive or rude. In this case 'linux' and 'open source' are not people, so they can't be insulted and 'yay open source, yay linux' can be interpreted as showing that not everything is good and great about linux and open source, which is undeniably true. It's significant in this case because in closed source there is usually a solid ($) reason to keep your customers satisfied, in open source much less so because plenty of the people there do it on a volunteer basis, so you have to be 'happy you got it in the first place'.
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "I tend to look at the factual content of a contribution and less at the tone." Well even with that filter there isn't much "content" to that comment besides "me too". :-) " 'yay open source, yay linux' can be interpreted as showing that not everything is good and great about linux and open source, which is undeniably true." Well isn't this true about everything in the world? Not everything is good and great about $X. I (vehemently!) agree, but by itself, that isn't a very useful thing to say. Coupled with the "script kiddie" tone, it is hard to fault downvoters (imo)!
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Fair enough!

jacquesm 17y ago

> Anything above that would be scary! We agree on that :) I tend to look at the factual content of a contribution and less at the tone. It's like the RMS/Miguel de Icaza thing but in miniature, if you 'leave' open source after having used it you're almost worse than if you were a windows user all your life long, and I think the moderation in part demonstrates that. If it's just about the tone that's different, but since 'tone' is hard to gage it's a bad reason to moderate for, unless it is crystal clear that the words are offensive or rude. In this case 'linux' and 'open source' are not people, so they can't be insulted and 'yay open source, yay linux' can be interpreted as showing that not everything is good and great about linux and open source, which is undeniably true. It's significant in this case because in closed source there is usually a solid ($) reason to keep your customers satisfied, in open source much less so because plenty of the people there do it on a volunteer basis, so you have to be 'happy you got it in the first place'.

plinkplonk 17y ago
"I tend to look at the factual content of a contribution and less at the tone." Well even with that filter there isn't much "content" to that comment besides "me too". :-) " 'yay open source, yay linux' can be interpreted as showing that not everything is good and great about linux and open source, which is undeniably true." Well isn't this true about everything in the world? Not everything is good and great about $X. I (vehemently!) agree, but by itself, that isn't a very useful thing to say. Coupled with the "script kiddie" tone, it is hard to fault downvoters (imo)!
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Fair enough!