7 ms·

That guy is me, the OP. The post was written as a single-draft rant and published in a hurry. In retrospect, I should have taken care to draft it better. Shoul

That guy is me, the OP. The post was written as a single-draft rant and published in a hurry. In retrospect, I should have taken care to draft it better. Should I edit the post and structure it better? Is it right to edit your post once it has been published and commented upon? In any case, thanks for the criticism. As for the irony, I would like to politely disagree with you on that one: I am not attacking people of HN in the post at all! In fact attacking is the wrong word, IMHO. I am ranting against/criticizing HN-ers criticizing skills. I personally believe that, in the context of HN, your posts, comments & critiques are defined as "your work". So essentially, I am criticizing "your work", don't you think? Also, I apologised for the rant going slightly off-topic in my last paragraph. I would like to believe that I did not stray too far off-topic but do tell me if I did: I'll take care to construct my future posts better. Thanks for reading!

DanBC 13y ago
> Is it right to edit your post once it has been published and commented upon? Not really. If you make it clear which bits are insertions and edits, or if you only add a section at the end you should be okay.
pdonis 13y ago
The post was written as a single-draft rant and published in a hurry. If you want constructive criticism, here is some: don't do that. Particularly not if you are basically complaining about other people doing that. And even more particularly not if it isn't just a quick comment on HN, but a separate post on your own blog; blog posts are expected to have more thought and care behind them than comments.
- DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
  Yup, duly noted. :) However, now that it is out there in the wild, I am taking notes for what to do (and what NOT to do) the next time I post something. The 'published in a hurry' bit happened because I accidentally clicked the publish button instead of the save draft button. I am not entirely sure how to unpublish on Medium - or if such a thing was even possible. So I went ahead and posted it to HN expecting - very literally - nothing. One way or the other, I'm getting to learn quite a few things now! :)
  - pdonis 13y ago
    One other item that I think is worth repeating, about the original presentation: the "click-through hell" commenter didn't choose the most tactful way to put it, but he had a point. :-) I know slideshows and videos are all the rage now, but a simple article or blog post has one big advantage over them: it's much higher bandwidth, at least for me, and I suspect for a large percentage of your target audience. I can read a lot faster than your video can run, or than your slideshow can go from slide to slide. If you don't give me a quick, high-bandwidth way to find out what you're doing, I'm not going to invest the time. [Edit: I see from comments elsewhere in this thread that you were not the author of the original presentation; but I still think the above is a good general rule to follow.]
corresation 13y ago
I am not attacking people of HN in the post at all! Not only are you attacking the "people of HN", you are grossly misrepresenting to do so. Aside from the absolutely ridiculous veer into claiming that it had anything whatsoever to do with ageism or punchcards or anyone attacking anyone (that whole non-sequitur was surreal, leaving me thinking that I must be missing something. The only explanation I can come up with is that you ply your own bigotry, and this was your way of categorizing and dismissing a segment of the population), you pull nonsense such as quoting alan_cx and then skipping where they continued with "How about a normal link to a normal page explaining your offer?" That is extremely constructive commentary: Like probably 99% of opportunities the author got, I clicked back a few slides in, as the presentation was absolutely atrocious. Your post was bitter irony as it was absolutely worlds worse than the worst of HN. Personal attacks, misrepresentations, strawmen....amazing.
- DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
  I agree with some of your points and would like to defend myself in regards to a few others, if you don;t mind. The ageism bit wasn't a non-sequitur in any way but it was definitely under-explained and I am at fault on that one. I have been at the receiving end a few times ("Why do you want to know that? That's how it has always been done!" and "What would you know? You have barely written your first fizzbuzz!" are just a few examples) and the anguish just happened to pour out. Apologies for not explaining that better in the post but it does not invalidate the existence of the point in any way. Ply my own bigotry? I am sorry if my post seemed to raise those questions/sentiments but I'd genuinely believe that I was trying to point out something that has troubled me. You, OTOH, without any knowledge of me or my intentions accused me of bigotry. Should I take that as an example of an ad hominem? As for alan_cx's comment, yes, I am guilty of cherry-picking a part of it. I believe I made that clear in the lead-up but that's no excuse. I'll make amends and edit in the rest of the comment right away. It doesn't make the original comment any better in terms of its jeering nature, IMHO. Personal attacks? Misrepresentations? Strawmen? I sincerely and unreservedly apologise for for any personal attacks or misrepresentations. I think I just chose to put in some (rather badly) cherry-picked but nonetheless valid examples. However, I know I am not perfect and am definitely prone to mistakes and the occasional exaggeration. If you could please point them out, I will make the necessary corrections immediately. I repeat, I am not attacking the people of HN at any point in the post. I am ranting against the jeering disguised as criticism. Since all dark clouds have a silver lining, all jeering must have an inherent critical point, too. Should I take it to mean that jeering is now acceptable since it is criticism? In that case, may I request you to please consider my jeering of HN's snobbish behavior as honest criticism?

DanBC 13y ago

> Is it right to edit your post once it has been published and commented upon? Not really. If you make it clear which bits are insertions and edits, or if you only add a section at the end you should be okay.

pdonis 13y ago

The post was written as a single-draft rant and published in a hurry. If you want constructive criticism, here is some: don't do that. Particularly not if you are basically complaining about other people doing that. And even more particularly not if it isn't just a quick comment on HN, but a separate post on your own blog; blog posts are expected to have more thought and care behind them than comments.

DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
Yup, duly noted. :) However, now that it is out there in the wild, I am taking notes for what to do (and what NOT to do) the next time I post something. The 'published in a hurry' bit happened because I accidentally clicked the publish button instead of the save draft button. I am not entirely sure how to unpublish on Medium - or if such a thing was even possible. So I went ahead and posted it to HN expecting - very literally - nothing. One way or the other, I'm getting to learn quite a few things now! :)
- pdonis 13y ago
  One other item that I think is worth repeating, about the original presentation: the "click-through hell" commenter didn't choose the most tactful way to put it, but he had a point. :-) I know slideshows and videos are all the rage now, but a simple article or blog post has one big advantage over them: it's much higher bandwidth, at least for me, and I suspect for a large percentage of your target audience. I can read a lot faster than your video can run, or than your slideshow can go from slide to slide. If you don't give me a quick, high-bandwidth way to find out what you're doing, I'm not going to invest the time. [Edit: I see from comments elsewhere in this thread that you were not the author of the original presentation; but I still think the above is a good general rule to follow.]

corresation 13y ago

I am not attacking people of HN in the post at all! Not only are you attacking the "people of HN", you are grossly misrepresenting to do so. Aside from the absolutely ridiculous veer into claiming that it had anything whatsoever to do with ageism or punchcards or anyone attacking anyone (that whole non-sequitur was surreal, leaving me thinking that I must be missing something. The only explanation I can come up with is that you ply your own bigotry, and this was your way of categorizing and dismissing a segment of the population), you pull nonsense such as quoting alan_cx and then skipping where they continued with "How about a normal link to a normal page explaining your offer?" That is extremely constructive commentary: Like probably 99% of opportunities the author got, I clicked back a few slides in, as the presentation was absolutely atrocious. Your post was bitter irony as it was absolutely worlds worse than the worst of HN. Personal attacks, misrepresentations, strawmen....amazing.

DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
I agree with some of your points and would like to defend myself in regards to a few others, if you don;t mind. The ageism bit wasn't a non-sequitur in any way but it was definitely under-explained and I am at fault on that one. I have been at the receiving end a few times ("Why do you want to know that? That's how it has always been done!" and "What would you know? You have barely written your first fizzbuzz!" are just a few examples) and the anguish just happened to pour out. Apologies for not explaining that better in the post but it does not invalidate the existence of the point in any way. Ply my own bigotry? I am sorry if my post seemed to raise those questions/sentiments but I'd genuinely believe that I was trying to point out something that has troubled me. You, OTOH, without any knowledge of me or my intentions accused me of bigotry. Should I take that as an example of an ad hominem? As for alan_cx's comment, yes, I am guilty of cherry-picking a part of it. I believe I made that clear in the lead-up but that's no excuse. I'll make amends and edit in the rest of the comment right away. It doesn't make the original comment any better in terms of its jeering nature, IMHO. Personal attacks? Misrepresentations? Strawmen? I sincerely and unreservedly apologise for for any personal attacks or misrepresentations. I think I just chose to put in some (rather badly) cherry-picked but nonetheless valid examples. However, I know I am not perfect and am definitely prone to mistakes and the occasional exaggeration. If you could please point them out, I will make the necessary corrections immediately. I repeat, I am not attacking the people of HN at any point in the post. I am ranting against the jeering disguised as criticism. Since all dark clouds have a silver lining, all jeering must have an inherent critical point, too. Should I take it to mean that jeering is now acceptable since it is criticism? In that case, may I request you to please consider my jeering of HN's snobbish behavior as honest criticism?