4 ms·
> Seriously, is HN fostering a culture where it's OK to spew pseudo-intellectual garbage as long as you're being nice? Not at all. It's fine and encouraged to
by tomhoward 9y ago
> Seriously, is HN fostering a culture where it's OK to spew pseudo-intellectual garbage as long as you're being nice?
Not at all. It's fine and encouraged to correct or contradict someone. It's not OK to be personally abusive when you do it.
The civility guideline has been in place since the very beginning of HN, and it's one of the biggest reasons why people keep coming back.
The commenter was just recounting their own recollection. There's no need to be combative. If they're wrong, just point it out politely. No big deal.
- peterwwillis 9y agoThe commenter was not being combative or abusive in any way. They did point out the other person was wrong politely. They still got downvoted to hell. People don't come to HN for civility. They come because they can be smug polite idiots around other smug polite idiots and "the rules" protect and enforce this behavior. If you don't believe that disproving something stupid is hard, I give you Donald Trump. Sometimes you just need to speak out against stupidity without providing a groveling mathematical proof.
- tomhoward 9y agoA cursory glance at that commenter's recent history shows little evidence of politeness or intention to be polite. You don't have to like this community but surely you have better things to do than making it worse by trashing it like this? Also, invoking US politics drama to score points in this discussion topic shows quite a lack of sense of proportion. We are talking about a single person's casually-communicated recollections of their past experiences with a computer operating system. It really isn't worth getting wound up about.