Y'know, it's funny. I also hate "This" as a usage for, well, anything. Reading this comment made me go look to see what moron posted "Exactly this" only to find out it was me. :-(

It gets worse too, now that I think about it, in that I responded to a comment about the article without having read the article.

I suppose it's contagious? Ug. Now I'm having a crisis. Either way, thanks for pointing out it, however indirectly.

This?

I have the opposite attitude, I reflexively down vote grammar nazism and a lack of flexibility for language change. Languages change organically, people spoke differently 100 years ago even and there is nothing wrong with it. It's like razing people for using the word 'like' instead of 'for example', even though they are functionally identical.

Language is a way of associating yourself with a particular group of people. How you communicate determines whether you fit into a group or not. If a comment is just "This" it adds nothing to a discussion. However, the comment above is more valid than your own, because it isn't off-topic ranting.

What you are basically saying is "I use the voting system to attempt to ostracise others because they come from another group". It is never appropriate to dismiss someone who actually has something to say because you don't like their way of saying it.

If I had been granted the power to downvote, I would cast my first downvote on you, for this.

In a post-modern economy of people handing each other money for entertainment, rather than just food and fuel, I don't want any part of the way I express myself to be "stamped out."

Luckily for you your HN karma, which you will probably try to monetize somehow, cannot be devalued by me, but you can entertain schemes of priggish conformity under my nose.

Pretty cool place!

If the number of votes for a comment were visible people probably wouldn't feel the need to annotate their comments with "this" or "++1". So blame the commenting economy of HN. Or just accept it.