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Comment by jdnrebd | Hacker News Reader

You should read the linked article

I have, and the article does not in any way address my question. You also seem to be a brand new user, so in case you're not aware, HN guidelines say to refrain from mentioning whether or not someone has read the link.

As a long time reader I keep wondering how it is more conductive to the discourse to comment without reading than to point that the answers might be in the article someone ignored.

Just reply with a quote from the article. They will understand they did not read carefully, and you can avoid the low-value 'read the article' snark (that might be false since often it is not actually in the article when somebody does that).

My question wasn't "how to handle that better". I hope it's okay to point it out :)

I would also argue it's not "often" the case someone asking the obvious question seemingly answered in the article had actually read it. It happens, surely, but it's not a rule of thumb.

That's too meta for a thread here anyways, I think.

It's an in-actionable "question" / comment. The rule does not claim one thing is better than the other. One is easily enforceable, the other is indemonstrable. If the point of this exchange is to better understand and use HN, the reason is because it is not hard to be constructive instead of throwing out non sequiturs.

And I didn't say it's '"often" the case someone asking the obvious question seemingly answered in the article had actually read it'. I said the person pointing it out while refusing to provide receipts or cordially engage is often wrong about what they think is obviously in the article. It's worthless noise regardless.

I'd rather read "it's in the article you didn't read" than pretty much anything else.

The ideal case of course is that there are only legit questions and discussion from people who actually read what they are talking about. If they miss something that's fine as long as it's the honest exception. But this is not a thing that exists or can exist, so it doesn't count. It's not actually available to be a "What I'd like the most."

The next-most ideal case is when someone talks about something they didn't read, that no one else responds at all. The noise is the minimum possible noise from the original source and it just gets ignored. This aslo is not a real thing, and so not up for consideration.

What's left is some flavore of "noise". This is not avoidable. it will exist and the only choices are what form and flavor it takes.

I think it is most conductive for everyone, the poster, the bystanders, everyone, including people who don't like "noise", is the obvious and natural response. That it's the obvious and natural response for a reason.

Low value and snark may be true but it's irrelevant. It's still the best most productive reaction. (Within reason, 500 of the same response to one comment isn't very interesting reading, but multiple of the same agreeing response does serve a purpose which serves us all.)

That's what I mean by "I'd rather read that than almost anything else."

There are are no better options that actually exist.

As for the hall monitor aspect, telling people they shouldn't say the obvious most applicable thing is also hall monitor.

All in all, I just find the argument sorta valid but weak.

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