Getting all guideliney on fluffy positive comments mostly defeats the purpose of getting all guideliney - the billowing clouds of meta that tends to generate are worse (guideline-worse, no less!) than the fluffy comment itself.
> the billowing clouds of meta that tends to generate are worse (guideline-worse, no less!) than the fluffy comment itself.
Well, at the end of the day you contributed to that with your own comment.
Yes but they are explicitly accounted for in the site docs/design/intent, from waaaay back:
Empty comments can be ok if they're positive. There's nothing wrong with submitting a comment saying just "Thanks." What we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative—comments that are mere name-calling.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
And pop up in moderation comments
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I'm pretty sure they meant saying "Thanks." in response to another comment, not as a top-level comment reply to a Show HN.
Kind of like how you wouldn't bust into a restaurant and say a loud "Thanks." to the entire room, despite it being perfectly fine to say thanks in a restaurant.