You seem to be implying that, on news.yc, it's okay to criticize Joel Spolsky, but not Paul Graham. I think it's that you don't have enough controls in your exp

You seem to be implying that, on news.yc, it's okay to criticize Joel Spolsky, but not Paul Graham. I think it's that you don't have enough controls in your experiment. I read this longish blog post in its entirety. I don't agree with all of it, but I think the author made some valid points, and that he's making a good-faith effort to be constructive. I also read the longish Giles Bowkett blog post you're talking about. It was very much not constructive, and in fact was all the way across the scale to conspiracy-theory, tinfoil-hat-style nutbar-ism. I'm not surprised it didn't score very well when it was posted here. Have you noticed how Paul usually reacts to criticism? Say somebody posts a comment here that is vaguely critical of something he wrote. Paul's usual response is along the lines of: "Are there specific things you can point out that I was wrong about?" That doesn't sound to me like a guy who considers himself beyond criticism.