By the time I noticed the downvoting and realized that I was a bit excessively pedantic, HN wouldn't let me edit or delete!! So I had no choice in making amends

By the time I noticed the downvoting and realized that I was a bit excessively pedantic, HN wouldn't let me edit or delete!! So I had no choice in making amends besides ignoring the whole thing or replying. But I was indeed only partly sorry. Sometimes being pedantic is okay, what I meant was that I was sorry for being pedantic without explicitly acknowledging it. To explain non-pedantically: I think it's interesting to note and acknowledge the tendency of people to have the wrong impression of over-engineered here. I think admitting that thought is appropriate, and I'd like to know how widespread it is. I also was certainly NOT clear that everyone was downvoting just because my comment was off-topic. I thought it might indeed be people misunderstanding me.