Is anyone else getting sick of all the "Ask HN: [complaining]" threads?

I understand the situation. People need to chill out. If you've got some beef with another user, just contact them personally.

I, like you, just want to read interesting things. Maybe there should be a sticky thing like in other forums for personal conduct expectations.

Exactly. The problem is that "smart$$ comments" are easier to write than a thoughtful reply. So pretty soon everyone gets into a game of one upmanship and every thread will have 80% "smart$$ comments". This why I no longer read reddit comments. On slashdot I browse at +5 keeping out much of the noise. Thankfully in HN, I was relieved to know that such comments are not tolerated by majority.

I have downvoted quite a lot of "smart$$" comments but never something that added original thought. I come to HN for comments that educate, inform and make me think. If i wanted a good laugh I would go to bash.org

A corollary. As you noted, humor on its own is usually regarded as noise in the HN environment, but if it is tagged onto an insightful comment then it tends to be better received.

You know what's even less valuable than smarta$$ remarks? Dumba$$ responses to them. I disagree with edw519; not all downmods require explanatory comments.

I don't know. Generally I agree, but did you see this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 I don't know anywhere else that this would have happened. On HN if it isn't genuinely funny then it gets voted down so I'm ok with it. I made a completely useless comment yesterday that was down voted; I won't do that again so easily.