Comment by gregjor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gregjor | Hacker News Reader

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@dang I appreciate the tireless and thankless work you do in HN, sincerely, but I don't always agree.

> Don't be curmudgeonly.

I feel flattered to get identified as a curmudgeon in company with Socrates, Samuel Johnson, Mark Twain, and George Carlin. I might take offense at the implicit ageism but at my age I roll with it. HN teems with unchallenged insults directed at the elderly, grating on us old people, but in line with the HN demographic.

> Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.

No one can "be" those things since that implies an identity. One can write in a negative tone. Accusations of rigidity and genericity would require a large sample. No one who knows me would describe me as "rigid or generically negative" so I will let that go as an ignorant judgment.

> please don't cross into personal attack.

Refuting the OP's claims can't count as personal attack, unless we hollow out all argument and rhetoric. I apologize for the Adderall comment, should have left that out.

> That is in no way allowed here.

Ironic given the personal nature of the moderator scolding, attacking my age and identity by telling me what not to "be."

I realize it's a distinction without a difference in this case, but the reason that guideline says "Don't be curmudgeonly" as opposed to "Don't be a curmudgeon" is precisely to avoid giving the impression of labeling the person themselves. It's a transient quality that anyone can have. But I get that it didn't land that way and I'm sorry.

Actually you put it quite nicely when you say: "No one can "be" those things since that implies an identity" - I quite agree, and that's exactly what that guideline was trying (but evidently failing) to avoid. To my ear it sounds analogous to the "Don't be snarky" guideline. If I say I was "being" snarky at a certain moment (or impatient or rude or what have you), it doesn't follow that I "am" a snarky (etc.) person. That's how I meant it anyhow - I hear your point and do not mean to persuade you out of it.

The Adderall comment was the worst bit, but 'You think too fast and have too many ideas pouring out of your "speed of thought" brain' was also crossing into personal attack, and so were the last two sentences comparing the other person to a child that failed to grow up. The trouble is that these sorts of swipes accrue like mercury in the bloodstream and the ecosystem can only handle so much.

@dang Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I abandoned all other social media years ago, I stick around on HN largely because of the moderation.

You probably know that I did not actually feel insulted or attacked. One of the few advantages of getting older: I care less and less what people appear to think about me, or what they say. And I don't think you intended insult. I alert at language using forms of "to be," to the annoyance of people who argue with me.

I understand how my comment can read like a personal attack, and I could have interpreted the OP more generously, or kept my mouth shut. I will try to do better. Something about the "I have too many ideas popping into my head" and "I think too fast" -- posted daily in one form or another, or spouted in co-working spaces, sets me off. My problem, which I will blame on cognitive decline and general feeling that I have reached the end of my road in the tech industry.

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