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Which is why I started with "Generally" :-)

Wow. Don't think I've had a comment with negative points on HN before. Curious as to why the downvotes. I was attempting to point out that I did not consider what I said in the original comment to be a hard and fast rule.

Is the objection that the way I said it was too disrespectful (no offense was intended, hence the :-) )? Disagreeing with the original statement (it might have downvotes too, but maybe more upvotes are hiding that)? Too obvious? Something else?

If you feel compelled to put a smiley face after a sentence to make it more agreeable, it's a sign that you were uncomfortable with the tone of the sentence. Adding a smiley just comes across as passive aggressive or condescending. Just rewrite the original sentence so that you're comfortable with the tone, and omit the smiley.

Thank you very much. Sometimes things like this are not obvious to me and this will help me communicate better in the future.

It didn't add anything to the conversation.

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