On HN I've seen that pattern and sometimes it was a well-respected poster, hammering on something pedantic and off-topic, derailing the thread. Point being, som

On HN I've seen that pattern and sometimes it was a well-respected poster, hammering on something pedantic and off-topic, derailing the thread. Point being, sometimes someone can be right, really knowledgeable and a (thread-localised) k00k. added: then again, there's also something about HN's discussion structure (mainly lack of collapsing comments like Reddit has) that makes these derails get in the way much more than necessary. Reddit even has place for strings of puns without them significantly derailing the discussion.