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Comment by ryanckulp | Hacker News Reader

i’m glad you closed the tab — you don’t deserve to read me. keep following fake rules and see where that takes you

It's not fake rules, its things which make it easier to read a large piece of text. You apparently value being unique and "non rule following" over the comfort and ease of reading of your readers which says a lot imho.

Indeed.

Many years ago, I took a poetry class and on the first day the instructor said (roughly): When E.E. Cummings did not capitalize the word 'I', it was creative and original. You are not E. E. Cummings. If you do not capitalize 'I', you are boring and pretentious. Capitalize your 'I's."

Breaking the rules of grammar is good when it adds value to the writing. I don't see how refusing to capitalize added any value here.

#TIL E.E. Cummings has this in common with me

It also lacks professionalism and makes it difficult to take seriously. I certainly hope he doesn’t write emails like this at work.

I think it is unfair of you to assume his motive, and inappropriate to use the idiom normally used to impugn one's character.

Would you apply the same reasoning to Cummings?

>I think it is unfair of you to assume his motive, and inappropriate to use the idiom normally used to impugn one's character.

The post I replied to basically said that asking for capitalization makes you stickler to pointless rules who won't get far in life. I merely replied in kind to the tone of that post which probably isn't exactly nice of me but I would say it is fair.

Poetry is much different than prose.

I don't see how that's relevant, as I was talking about the man, his actions, and the presumption of motive.

Cummings disregarded capitalization norms in his prose as well.

Edit: Maybe you meant: since Cummings wrote a lot of poetry, he is a special case and therefore can be forgiven for disregarding capitalization norms in his prose?

It's much more important the quality of the poetry he wrote than the quantity.

I can write a program to generate thousands of haikus. Doing so does not make that body of poetry meaningful in any way [0].

[0] Well, other than the fact that it got me a free monogrammed PowerBook G4 Laptop sleeve that was being given away by some people who underestimated the willingness of a younger programmer to beseige them with computer-generated haikus. ;)

Let's keep this in context. Are you saying that Cummings did or did not 'apparently value being unique and "non rule following" over the comfort and ease of reading' ?

Edit: Or maybe you are saying that we should only presume motive of people who don't write great works?

I don't know whether capitalization is a fake rule or not, but civility is a real rule here on HN.

I find your capitalization choices relaxing to read, and allows for better pacing. The critical parent comment was primarily sharing a perspective shared by a subset of potential readers. You can ignore the feedback, but responding with this tone can lead to you being dogpiled by haters.

if author saw my previous comment re adopting a "proper case" toggle view, they could have given me the benefit of the doubt. i definitely want people to read in a format comfortable for them. i also know which rules don't matter

>> i definitely want people to read in a format comfortable for them

>> i also know which rules don't matter

Are you sure? These 2 statements conflict in this context.

after years of writing how i want and never getting complaints, then 1 day on HN, i will build a toggle.

(aka the problem is you)

I thought the lack of capitalization made the article seem more down to earth and cozy- Kinda like if a friend sent me a long text. Don’t let the grammar nazis & pedantic condescension on HN deter you. I like the design.

i'm,using,my,own,rules,deal,with,it

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