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Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

Just a meta-comment, but your reply was really good until the last sentence.

> Sounds like you need some more research into macrophotography

That undermined your otherwise very factual rebuttal/clarification because it seems like at best an impossible standard (everybody could always use more research into anything), and at worst a "you don't know as much as me" veiled in professionalism/passive aggressiveness. The interpretation is up to the reader (some of whom will be charitable in their interpretation, others will not).

To be clear I'm not accusing you of "the worst" (I have no idea what was in your heart/mind and I don't presume to guess), I'm executing on a personal goal to try and help elevate conversations through useful/constructive feedback. Also I'm not presuming that this comment/feedback is useful or constructive as it may not be, but I hope that it is because that's my goal.

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I interpreted the phrase as meaning something more like “when you make claims about the fundamentals of macrophotography with such a confident, authoritative tone, those claims should be backed by more research than you seem to have done.”

The rebuttal is actually incorrect and suffers from many misconceptions typical in photography. This makes the condescension much worse, because whoever wrote that did not live up to their own standard.

I support your goal! Maybe there is a way to state this in fewer words more often.

I know you think what you're doing is "elevating" conversations, but ... "calling out" people for the slightest bit of negativity is an extremely toxic behavior. Quality discourse requires negativity and fosters a healthy span of tolerance for it. Your interpretation is also very narrow and passive aggressive itself, to me it seems completely neutral that in a case when someone has a strong opinion based on ignorance, you remind them of their ignorance - not just for people reading it but for their own sake.

Disagree. Attack the arguments, not the person.

Why did that person feel the need to attack the poster? What did they gain from it? How did it help the argument?

I don't think there's a single benefit from that line other than to be self-serving statement that says "i know more than you" when their rebuttal did that more effectively while staying on topic.

That was far from a personal attack. A personal attack is when you attack a specific attribute of that person or use this person itself as an argument for something. It is not if a person does something wrong and you say hey person, you shouldn't do that thing.

It really depends on the purposes of the comment.

Direct responses can be intended to educate the person they are responding to, but they can also be intended to warn people around.

Does this person want to get a point across with empathy or do they want to discredit the comment to future readers to avoid the circulation of false information?

I find that last line perfectly justified.

OP’s post was incredibly dismissive and incorrect but was written as if it was from an expert.

It’s textbook misinformation as far as I am concerned.

It’s not really about being justified, it’s about being gentler with people. We don’t have to jump all over each other, there is another way.

I think OP will live.

When given the choice, choose compassion.

I think the reply was plenty respectful, and the whining to the contrary is just a veiled attempt to derail the conversation.

Should that be the standard we hold ourselves to?

My post was correct and the person who was responding to me is incorrect. I did not mean to sound dismissive -- I intentionally put multiple paragraphs congratulating the artists and praising what can be done with cell phones in order to try to avoid that look. But it is important to realize that these awards are marketing and marketing needs to be interrogated, IMO.

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