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Seriously? What pedantic nonsense. It's a minor, hardly offensive phrase designed to add some emotional color to comments. We're not robots here. Many people wr
by shadowprofile77 7y ago
Seriously? What pedantic nonsense. It's a minor, hardly offensive phrase designed to add some emotional color to comments. We're not robots here. Many people write comments with expletives (and don't get downvoted) along with all sorts of things, but you fixate here on "give me a break".
- dang 7y agoI understand how this can seem pedantic, but when people lead with swipes like that, it subtly cues the discussion towards disrespect and even aggression. Maybe they don't land that way with you, but the spectrum of the audience here is pretty broad, and it's best to just omit things that predictably activate major subsets. Given that such remarks are cheap and mechanical, adding no information, it improves the signal/noise ratio to take them out anyhow. To me it seems clear how much better the GP comment reads without the first bit—how much more visible the actual point becomes. Emotional color is welcome in HN comments, but reflexive indignation is a different thing. For the sake of the commons here, we all need to work on containing the petty anger that flares up instantly and is all too easy to vent onto the internet.