As someone who has gone through the inquisition, and dreaded it, it wasn't that bad. Show HN attracts criticism, yes, but it's mostly concrete and specific. Gen

As someone who has gone through the inquisition, and dreaded it, it wasn't that bad. Show HN attracts criticism, yes, but it's mostly concrete and specific. Generic PR speak doesn't work, but if you address the comments in a direct, honest way, people generally understand that your stuff can't be perfect and that there are tradeoffs. A large part of Show HN has a different target user in mind than this crowd, and that's ok. Snark OTOH, especially at an individual who is only representing themself, is just mean. Of course it happens here too, but it's rare. Reddit and Twitter are completely plagued by it – it usually gets the most engagement, whereas here it's rare and gets a chilly response. Finally, there's one more differentiator. Twitter is people-oriented, you have a profile, usually your real name, and public follower count. Twitter is designed to be a popularity contest. Both hacker news and reddit are content-oriented. Sure, there's a username, but most people don't give a shit about who you are.