Hacker News Reader

Comment by buchhalter37 | Hacker News Reader

Did you edit your comment to remove the condescending remark about my new HN account? Wow.

Well I’m glad to hear that “the East” had something to contribute too!

Please, it's quite obvious your intent is in part to generate emotion and not purely 'informed exchange'. Your tone is not appropriate to this community. Some things I've learned here: give your fellow conversationalists as much benefit of the doubt as you can. It's wise to avoid tactics of rhetoric such as reductio ad absurdum. Try explain your thoughts in such a way that we do not have to guess.

I'm actually quite sure you have something interesting to contribute, but please, politeness is important here.

Apologies for the sarcasm. I felt that the previous comment was very much ad hominem and the edit was particularly insidious. But you’re right, no excuse for bad form here :)

Do you not feel your initial comment was ad hominem? "Listening to Joscha Bach is like listening to the screams of computer scientists as they are slowly squeezed to death."

I initially reacted to that and replied more harshly than I should have, so I edited the comment slightly to remove the emotion. What's insidious about that?

Or he edited it out because after reflection he realised t didn’t add anything useful? That often happens to me — I write something more snarky than I meant to and only realise after the fact and then edit my comment to remove it. My intent, when I do this, is not one of malice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com