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Comment by yoz-y | Hacker News Reader

That is a weird criticism. A document is clearly not a webpage, main use of Google docs is easy collaboration and that’s not really a thing with html.

Most people would not set up something like a git repo to track changes and comment on the content for example.

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My comment was not meant as criticism. I'm not sure why anyone would interpret it as such.

Your opening sentence came off to me as sarcastic opining that this is an inferior reinvention of a 30-year-old wheel.

Thank you. That's what phreack said too. See my response to him here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30555760

The way you laid out the beats of your original comment made it sound sarcastic if you read it expecting the usual off-hand snark that's prevalent on the internet, so "makes perfect sense" would turn into "makes no sense at all" - therefore seeming like the product is useless or a step back when web pages already exist.

Thank you. Your feedback is helpful: In hindsight, I can now see my comment could be misinterpreted as sarcastic, even if that wasn't my intention. (If anything, I think giving people more/better tools for creating online content is great -- with the obvious caveat that all this content will reside in "private webs of documents" controlled by a single company.)

It came off as sarcastic initially to me, but I read it again and realized it was earnest.

I understood it as intended, but I can see how people would read it that way. It has roughly the structure of a "it's just x with y baggage" comment at the outset and could trip that wire in the mind of someone who doesn't finish reading before commenting.

edit: more comments appeared while I was drafting. I guess it never hurts to have the same feedback framed different ways...

Apologies for mistaking it as such. After re-reading it again I can see your original intent. I need to brush up on my principle of charity :/

Thank you. I appreciate it :-)

It seems we've all come across so much (unhelpful) sarcasm on the web that whenever we see certain phrases or grammatical constructs, we are unconsciously preconditioned to think the intent is negative -- even when it isn't.

On my end, I'll try to be more mindful about my phrasing next time.

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