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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

His questions don't appear the least bit rude to me. They are certainly direct, which some people confuse for rudeness, but it looks like an entirely honest line of questioning. Honestly, I'd like to know the answer too. What makes achievements incredible?

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It’s rude because avolcano is clearly excited about this premise and rodly is just ridiculing his/her excitement. There’s no objective basis to what is incredible.

Or maybe he's asking why avolcano finds achievements to be the most exciting thing. It didn't seem that rude to me, but then again, I'm a bit oblivious to such things -- I tend to favour the nicest possible interpretation.

"Incredible: so extraordinary it seems impossible".

I do wonder what is so extraordinary about having achievements in apps and how this would be a very difficult thing to technically achieve.

I’ve got: "Incredible: difficult to believe; extraordinary"

He's also misinterpreted. The incredulity was about 3 things: "achievements, DLC, and even Steam Workshop support." When the focus is on an opinion, rather than facts, the result is often rudeness and inaccuracy. Those two often appear together. When you focus on facts, rather than opinions, it's hard to be rude. An example from http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

'That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3.'

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