Comment by mlevental | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mlevental | Hacker News Reader

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this is now an hn trope (complaining about some jargon in the title). newsflash the meaning of the title isn't "Linux reverse engineering for beginning humans that don't know anything about the universe, language, or electricity" because then you'd need to define Linux and engineering as well. the meaning of the title is always "____ thing for people that know a little about ____ thing but not everything". i think it's a very reasonable assumption on the part of the author that the only people he/she is accountable to for the intelligibility of such a title is someone who searches out the article, since after all this isn't about regattas nor is it assigned reading in some kind of primary education course. this kind of bad faith reading of these articles is beyond worthless (and certainly doesn't merit a comment). what I can't for the life of me understand is why hn is like the epicenter of this kind of pseudo-critical engagement with media - neither Reddit not Facebook has these kinds of comments nearly as often (nor the closely related "... didn't read after ___" where ___ is a word in the first sentence). my hypothesis is that it has something to do "intelligence signaling" because people wrongly believe that being critical is an indicator of intelligence.

While some people might post such comments for the sake of "intelligence signaling", the GP seemed to not know what "CTF" meant. I think he offered a fair and simple criticism, and I found your comment needlessly harsh and presumptuous.

Even if some people post comments like that as a trope, some - if not many - post them sincerely. I think the original criticism makes perfect sense: an article for beginners might better benefit its readers if it offers just a simple sentence or even link that briefly explains what the topic is before delving into its details. I personally have read a number of articles where I've encountered this problem, despite my familiarity with the given topic.

Also, I think it benefits the HN community at large if we try our best to read people's comments in a positive light, within reasonable, and encourage giving and receiving constructive criticism from one another.

> this kind of bad faith reading of these articles

Speaking of bad faith, how about some benefit of the doubt? My comment was not meant to be critical, but helpful for others who might have that same nagging question in the back of their mind while they read the article: "But what are CTFs"? It might be obvious to you, but I couldn't tell if CTFs were some RE tool, a part or category of ELFs, or some other binary format (and I do indeed know a thing or two about Linux/Engineering/Electricity) Probably a better comment could have been "Great overview, very helpful, but I had to google CTFs: Capture the Flag". Let me know if that would have set off any other "hn trope" triggers for you....Sheesh

This is often true, but if the article is "for Beginners" (it is even in the title), one would expect the article to explain what the acronym CTF is, somewhere near the beginning.

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