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At the time there was lots of handwaving, but nobody was bringing forward the obvious, when somebody owes you north of six figures, you sue them. Not sure why t

At the time there was lots of handwaving, but nobody was bringing forward the obvious, when somebody owes you north of six figures, you sue them. Not sure why that didn't contribute anything, but that's what most rational adults do in that situation. It certainly wasn't part of the thread until then. In my experience, a two word response containing an obvious course of action that everybody is overlooking like that would have either been downvoted to -4+ or upvoted to 30. It's a crap shoot. Not sure how suing somebody who owes you that kind of money requires a long exposition to explain. The subsequent comment asking for alternatives was upvoted into positive territory that same day it was posted, without adding anything else and with no responses in the form of alternatives. edit similar, newer comments http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432131 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432131 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432131 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432131 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432612 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432612 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432133 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432133 were not similarly downvoted (and a couple were actually upvoted) yet add no more to the discussion than mine (since they came after my comment and recommend the same thing, by definition, they do not add anything "new") and probably should have just been responses to my original comment in the form of adding specificity or methods. It's not the downvotes per se that I mind. People can feel free to disagree that a lawsuit is a bad course of action when somebody owes you $126,000. I think they are wrong, but whatever. It's not like any of the 10 people who hit the little down arrow could be bothered to type "I disagree with this because...". But that people continued to downvote long after my suggestion hit -4 shows that allowing downvotes after hitting -4 doesn't work. At that point, I'm just being targeted. Particularly when essentially the same comments were untouched or upvoted. If the thread hadn't moved off the front page rather quickly I'm sure I would have taken more hits. Okay HN community! I got it! I should have provided half a dozen words telling them to sue instead of 3! Clearly that's the community standard as the linked comments demonstrate. I now realize I'm now edw519 or patio11, where every 3 word comment gets half a dozen upvotes. Perhaps I should put some numbers next to my handle?

philwelch 16y ago
"At the time there was lots of handwaving, but nobody was bringing forward the obvious, when somebody owes you north of six figures, you sue them. Not sure why that didn't contribute anything, but that's what most rational adults do in that situation. It certainly wasn't part of the thread until then." I'm consistently amused at how people who get their comments downvoted complain about the downvoting by rephrasing the point they were trying to make in order to make it clearer and more articulate. I do it, too. The joke is that if the original post expressed your point as clearly as the complaint post, we wouldn't get downvoted in the first place. Writing for human consumption is a frustrating and inexact task. You might sound like a complete asshole without meaning to. I, in particular, often have that problem.
- elblanco 16y ago
  Usually if nobody understands it after the first two tries, I just say it louder, then slower, then louder and slower.

philwelch 16y ago

"At the time there was lots of handwaving, but nobody was bringing forward the obvious, when somebody owes you north of six figures, you sue them. Not sure why that didn't contribute anything, but that's what most rational adults do in that situation. It certainly wasn't part of the thread until then." I'm consistently amused at how people who get their comments downvoted complain about the downvoting by rephrasing the point they were trying to make in order to make it clearer and more articulate. I do it, too. The joke is that if the original post expressed your point as clearly as the complaint post, we wouldn't get downvoted in the first place. Writing for human consumption is a frustrating and inexact task. You might sound like a complete asshole without meaning to. I, in particular, often have that problem.

elblanco 16y ago
Usually if nobody understands it after the first two tries, I just say it louder, then slower, then louder and slower.