> HN is definitely the latter since comments in this community are largely reserved for criticism while the appreciation is (usually) limited to upvotes. I thi

> HN is definitely the latter since comments in this community are largely reserved for criticism while the appreciation is (usually) limited to upvotes. I think this reasoning is fairly sound and possibly hints that HN may be less unfriendly than the comments alone make out. Anonymity tends to make criticism easier to lob around. I'm in academia and even super-critical reviews tend to be prefaced by apologetic "good points" before the submission gets eviscerated; even then a good reviewer will give constructive feedback. I wonder if we could borrow this approach to commenting to improve the atmosphere?