The thing about HN or Reddit or any other such site that seems to me most unsettling is cases like this.

There are circumstances under which reading a post and then the follow-on comments of lots of informed people is enlightening, and when that happens that's great. But in a case like this, really, none of us has any idea. I find myself basically gawking, and thinking that one or the other of the two parties here is unfairly being gawked at (it sounds like).

True, such cases are news, and for instance may have an impact on things that happen at Yahoo! or perhaps even have wider impacts. True. But still I hope we stay away from gawks, to the extent possible.