Hacker News Reader

I am not a native English speaker. I am a Greek speaker, and there is no equivalent to the gender-neutral "they", you have to choose "he" or "she" and "he" is the most usual choice. So, here I let my native-tongued thinking interfere with the ideal English interpretation of what I had to say. And, I did not read your username :)

Conjecture: a downvote can also mean "does not add to the discussion", where 'the discussion' is the original topic.

Counterpoint: I see many threads that get off-topic from the original post, and yet downvotes for them seem…random. Some off-topic sub-threads become lengthy and lively.

Colour me "confused".

Thanks for clarifying. I'm a native Greek speaker too.

I'm sorry, is this serious? I get downvoted because I ask why I was called "he" by default, as if we're all guys here, and I ask in the most polite way possible?

Oh well, I suppose I'll start calling everybody a "she" by default, then.

When in doubt, offend everyone by assuming "it".

Presumably they didn't read your user name...