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Comment by cqqxo4zV46cp | Hacker News Reader

As informative as I’m sure this blog post is, I had to stop reading it a paragraph or two in because its overly aggressive and snarky tone makes it completely unemployable. I am not Wirecutter. I am a nobody reading a blog post. I am not the subject of this ridicule yet I am somehow the recipient of it. If you’ve got a good point to make the proof will be in the pudding without having to be overly vitriolic on the Internet. If there was an iota of intent to have someone at Wirecutter see this, being this aggressive only serves to have them dig their heels in. It’s needlessly emotional and self-indulgent when the subject is…air purifiers? Christ.

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I don't see your criticism at all, and I don't think there's anything aggressive or vitriolic here.

The article is specifically a rebuttal to a Wirecutter review, so the target audience is really anyone who cares what Wirecutter thinks about purifiers (a lot of people rely on it to guide their buying decisions, after all), and perhaps the staff at Wirecutter.

I can't speak to the article's technical accuracy, but it appears to do a good job of systematically breaking down their analysis using technical arguments, visualizations, and math.

Really? You don't think there is anything aggressive or vitriolic?

"Well, perhaps we should, I don’t know, read the IKEA website?"

"...that totally coincidentally happens to pay affiliate marketing commissions."

"Maybe we should be generous and ignore all the errors and misstatements above."

"...then congratulations—you understand air filters better than the Wirecutter."

Not to me, no. Snarky, yes; aggressive and vitriolic, no.

This is extremely aggressive. I thought the author might jump out from my monitor and attack me after I read such statements.

is it polite? no.

is it not accurate? also no.

is it vulgar or offensive? no. unless you get easily offended, in which case you probably shouldn't spend too much time on the internet?

This is not aggressive or vitriolic, lol -- this is just a writer with a point of view and a voice.

Not at all. I just see some mild sarcasm.

I agree with you completely. This blog post could be useful and informative, but its writing is weirdly aggressive and annoying that it becomes way harder to read rather than just roll my eyes at and move on with my life.

It's this kind of writing that is unfortunately endemic in the "internet rationalist" space, which doubly unfortunately has a lot of crossover with users on hn. Hence why you're being dogpiled by the most annoying people online.

More importantly though, writing like this is self-defeating, for the author, for wirecutter, and for everyone else who has to inflict it upon themselves just so the author can get to the point.

There are much better ways to communicate about issues, about anything, if you're actually interested in helping an organization do better ("Wirecutter, let me help you.") or even just want to inform people that wirecutter might not be the most reliable source for product recommendations.

This kind of writing though is about the same tier of bad as the loud and annoying youtube takedown videos where they put somebody "on blast". It doesn't surprise me at all that such writing is equally popular on hn. Outrage drives engagement, no matter how far up their own asses your audience is. (Example one: me and my comment).

> I am not the subject of this ridicule yet I am somehow the recipient of it.

This line though is really what I wanted to write a comment about. I love this. Some weirdos will try to twist this feeling into being "personally offended by reading" but no, your feelings are valid. This kind of writing is exhausting. It's a waste of my time. The author clearly has a point to make, and everyone would be better served if they would just make it and leave the shitflinging out. Could you imagine having to be around someone who communicated this way irl?

All that to say, thanks for sharing. I'll take my beating now.

You could tell a rationalist wrote it from the title alone. No one else writes blog entries titled "Contra X".

I think the snark & combative tone is warranted - the wirecutter used to be a great resource for finding unbiased & thoroughly technical reviews on consumer products. Since they were bought by NYT the review quality has fallen off significantly. I think the writer (and many others) hold some justified resentment toward it now. I can see how some might find that tone to be a turnoff but it seems apt given their history.

It does include a "[Content warning: Polemic]" right up top! Also honestly it's not that spicy.

> If there was an iota of intent to have someone at Wirecutter see this, being this aggressive only serves to have them dig their heels in.

That's their problem, though!

Well…I found it to be? One can put as many disclaimers as one wants on something, but Michael Bluth will always be right in being a tad confused as to why there was a dead dove in his fridge.

Yeah, well, only so much you can do. Tone is subjective.

Not really. How much you care about tone is certainly personal, but it's extremely easy to consistently analyze tone and sentiment from written or spoken text. This stuff is not mysterious.

Tone is not subjective? I had no problem with the writing style of the article and wouldn't've even noticed it were it not for this thread. Even after reading the couple of complaints about it, I still prefer it to the endlessly dry, academic monotone that HN promotes.

The conversation is about whether the tone is appropriate, not whether it is parseable.

Wirecutter seems to "lean", where the original site, before NYT purchase, was (much) more balanced. Knowing this, I thought the blog post write-up dove tailed nicely.

The blog provides good evidence-based snarkiness.

Ahh, you want to kill some content, aye? Lets see, which hatchet will work best - can't immediately find flaws in the logic, so that one's out; same deal with the math. Let's look broader - let's just say, ah, this content may be sensible, useful, it may even be accurate, but we'll just accuse it of poor tone - specifically we'll kinda gesture at workplace norms and say that it's unemployable (why not add in a bit of implied ad hominem to spice things up?) That'll do the trick~

Maybe you can drop the text of the article in chatgpt and tell it to make it less snarky? :)

Yeah, the tone was a huge turnoff for me too. I just kept wondering how one human could care so much about something so trivial. Not even air purifiers themselves, but the fact that wirecutter didn't choose the "right" air purifier from his standpoint.

I don't think it's about just air purifiers. If their air purifier review is so obviously low quality, how do the other reviews fare? Do I need to read a debunking review of Wirecutter recommendations for every category I read? Why read Wirecutter at all then, if they're not trustworthy? Is it actually a review or an ad for the winner of the comparison?

I think a lot of our mainstream media is so bad because nobody is calling out the shoddy reporting.

I think the fact that their #1 pick was an affiliate product shows what could really be behind the curtain. Is Wirecutter being paid to bump up their reviews for products or at least being paid to trash other products in comparison? It's like doing a review on a Toyota Corolla while at the same time comparing it to a Mercedes E63 AMG. Yes, I'm sure the Mercedes is better looking, more comfortable, much faster, and can overall out perform the Corolla but it costs 4x as much and cost you much more in gas. If you need the absolute best in performance, buy the AMG. If you just need something to get to work at the best value, buy the Corolla. Just about every shootout-style review worth it's salt will have different categories: best overall laptop, best gaming laptop, best 17in laptop, best compact, and best value. In this case, the IKEA air purifier should have been compared to something of similar price and something of similar performance. As a consumer, I'm interested in those two metrics, either I've got a general idea of how much I'm willing to spend and looking to get the best performance at that price or I'm looking for a certain level of performance due to health issues and want to get the cheapest thing that can do it. Features can come into play but most of these purifiers are dead simple: a fan, a filter, a speed controller, and a timer to change the filter. Obviously Wirecutter can't survive on being totally independent and taking no money from anyone but it is incredibly disingenuous if they are accepting money to promote one product and trash any competition. IKEA is a very popular brand and lots of people are going to be looking at online reviews. Slipping in what could potentially be an advertisement into the review is worthy of involving the FTC if it's not being clearly disclaimed.

I found it fun to read. Maybe it says something about you that you're personally offended by reading?

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