Hacker News Reader

Please do not use "please" in a passive aggressive manner when you are giving an authoritative command. Use please when you are genuinely requesting someone does something as a favor to you. When you are giving an order, be and adult and just give the order.

View on HN

Someone can request and command something at the same time. Presumably, the administrators don't want to have to take down posts and police the site, and appreciate it when users don't make their lives more difficult. This makes the "please" seem legitimate to me.

I also disagree on characterizing the usage as "passive-aggressive." I would just call it polite. Underscoring your authority with a peremptory tone seems worse to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com