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Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

Parent is not wrong, but definitely could have some improved manners and tact.

As a linux user I wanted to make sure to say thank you for supporting and thinking about linux!

>Parent is not wrong, but definitely could have some improved manners and tact.

I don't understand the weird tone policing that people are trying to do, there is literally nothing wrong with the parent's comment and pretending otherwise is weird.

I didn't see it as tone policing. From my point of view, I saw a very interesting application being shared and I hoped it would be good and prosperous so i can use it. When the first comment says "i hate that you do X" it is a bit discouraging towards a team of developers who have probably poured tons of free hours into making this. Words play with psychology, and it is my personal interest that these devs have good morale to make this app great, and that meand giving them feedback about obvious mistakes in a tone that does not hurt this morale. I hope that make sense

"i hate that you do x" is perfectly normal, you're being weird.

Taking "I hate that you do x" as a combative or rude dismissal is perfectly normal too.

nah, you're weird.

Please read the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Comments like the one above do not belong here at all, it's childish, it brings absolutely 0 value to readers, and it's against the guidelines because it degrades the quality of HN for everyone.

And that's not even the words used, they said:

> I absolutely hate <stuff that does X> like this

That's not even the words I used either.

> I absolutely hate having stuff automatically create anything in my home directory like this.

Which is

> I absolutely hate <action> like this

Which is not

> I absolutely hate <thing that does action> like this

I quite like grayjay. I just dislike this one thing it does.

I don't think it's badly worded either.

And FUTO is a commercial for-profit operation, not voluntary driven. Their devs are paid.

This is a cultural problem.

What is considered impolite in the US or the UK is considered just being straightforward in e.g. Scandinavia.

I am German, we're kind of in the middle between someone from e.g. Finland and someone from e.g. or the UK or US with what we consider "ok" or rather crossing into rude territory.

A common exchange I witnessed in a meeting at work (Nokia):

Finnish developer: And if we follow this suggestion we will all look like idiots.

UK developer: I hear you.

Deciding which one is more impolite or impolite at all is left as an exercise to the reader. ;)

You get my point.

It's not even impolite in the US, the people tone policing are being very weird. It's perfectly normal to say "I hate x behavior".

It's not normal to see someone doing x behavior, initiate a conversation with them and say "I hate x behavior." They're not tone policing you when they tell you that you come off like an asshole when you do that.

That's not at all what's happening here so it's irrelevant.

Dude, be civil, is givin me second hand shame

Actually, parent is wrong. You're not supposed to do that shit on Windows either. That's what AppData is for. Writing configuration files and folders to "Documents" or the user's home folder is sloppy shit.

I agree that this should be in the XDG directory or AppData, but be kind, y'all -- this is open source, it is a gift someone has labored over and given you. There are much nicer ways to suggest improvements than calling it "sloppy shit".

edit: it's not actually open source by the OSI definition it seems [1], but it is reasonably close.

[1] https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/

Sure, things can always have gone better, but this is data loss/corruption territory. It's asking for trouble and hurt feelings. I think a strong response is ok.

What exactly is wrong with how they expressed themselves?

Is the word "hate" really so odious?

I was very blunt and impersonal. People worked hard on a thing and my first reaction was criticism, without even the added overall view of "I love this thing, but here is a small thing that bothers me." I could have been more courteous and human about things.

I stand by the points I made, but I could have been friendlier. I normally make an effort to be friendly as I can about things, but I absolutely did not here. I hope that nothing I said came across as vitriol, but rather, valid criticism. I'm a strong believer in criticizing the things you love, but I need to remember that random comments on HN aren't the place where people know I love the thing, and my criticism needs context.

So no, it wasn't really that odious, but it was other things. Do I feel stricken with guilt or remorse about what I said? No. Could I have been friendlier? yes. Should I have been friendlier? Probably.

I appreciate the reflection here.

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