Well, I snorted appreciatively when I read it, at least.
(This is why I dislike downvoting. Ignore ideas you dislike, flag abuse, but downvote "honest opinions"? Hmm. Sure, that begs the question of abuse Vs honest opinions, but that is the purpose of discussion and reason: To sort the abuse from the honest opinions, to accept and improve upon the latter.)
Some people just won't give up until they get a taste of their own medicine, and on the internet it is all fun and games until your name and address are out in the open.
The fun bit is that once that happened we (usually, we do have a couple of hold-outs) could conclude those cases swiftly.
I'm curious why you chose to downvote rather than reply and advise?
I'm not trying to bait you, just trying to understand.
(Full disclosure: I think this is another flaw in the whole downvote concept - it provides us a way to make us feel we have registered a contrary opinion without requiring that we take the time to offer - and, if necessarily, defend - the counter thought. There have been quite a few times I've started a reply only to abandon it when I realized what I was signing on for. My thoughts are not so important I feel the need to register them at any cost. Of course, there have been a few times when I have blazed along righteously only to regret a few minutes later, and have been noticeable in my absence from subsequent discussion. But those aren't quite as frequent. I hope.)
Now, jacquesm's reply is making me regret my downvote.
Also, I agree with what you think about downvotes. I think HN should have a detector of potentially stupid comments (e.g "u re a fag") that could be downvoted without giving a reason, and the rest (comments similar to skidoo's comment) could be downvoted only after giving an explanation.
Partly as a result of this discussion.
MOi ha ha ha... uh oh.
;-P
(A quick search reveals no FF extensions to disable downvoting. I guess I could put rotate180 in user.js....)
As for the GGP comment, he advised to get the help of a 'hacker to hunt him down' not to hack him back. That's a world of a difference.