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Comment by why-el | Hacker News Reader

Not really a direct response to you, just a remark, but I don't know why people downvote this type of comments. "enjoyed the read" is real feedback for the writer.

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It's redundant. An upvote says the same thing. Feedback needs substance, and without substance, it's just noise. People come here specifically because there isn't much noise. It all comes down to respect. Respect my time by providing insight, value, knowledge, or a unique perspective, and I'll do the same.

I agree it was probably redundant; however, I was the first person other than OP to upvote the post and comment on it. I thought it was a good read, didn't want it to get buried, so upvoted and left a brief comment. Will refrain from doing the commenting next time.

An upvote might mean "This is important", or "This has good lessons", though, and specifically saying that you enjoyed reading it, or that it was written well, is a slightly different compliment.

There is no value in a thoughtless "enjoyed reading" or "nice read." If that's all someone has to say, I would recommend waiting until they have more to say. If they want to spend 5 minutes explaining their thought process and why they enjoyed it, that's a different story, that's something I'm interested in hearing.

Personally, I enjoyed the post because it has a chronological order, specific names, dates, and numbers. Dave's transparency is refreshing and gives me confidence in his opinion. As for readability, it could use more of a contrast of the text and background, but I appreciated the increased line-height, which helped me to scan the article quickly.

Anyone can type a couple of words, this is the internet after all, but that's not why people come here.

Spambot writes love to use comments that contain nothing but a fully content-free phrase like "Great read!". These comments can be real feedback if written sincerely by an actual human, but their content gives you no clue whether they are. I've ended up thinking of most comments that could be posted verbatim for just about any story as mindless robot noise.

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