> Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
Could you explain how this applies? I don't mean to be difficult -- really. I appreciate that Hacker News is a great place for discussion, and I very much appreciate that's partly because of the work you're doing.
I'd just like to think that my criticism is thoughtful and is neither rigidly nor generically negative: I pointed out specific omissions and offered an analogy to explain the immaturity and cluelessness that I see in the piece -- not just that the claims are wrong but that the perspective is delivered so badly that it's difficul to take seriously. It wasn't meant to be unkind or a swipe; I didn't call names or sneer; it wasn't a generic tangent. It was the best way I could find to characterize the ways the piece's tone and content work together, undermining it and (almost certainly) rubbing people the wrong way.
> [the whole Jonestown (?) bit as a metaphor – at least a little disproportionate, no?]
> I hear the same cluelessness in this piece
I guess the issue is the number of negative terms and characterizations all crammed into one paragraph. It just seems to lay it on too heavy.
The writer is clearly wrestling with something and trying to process it, and the post has tapped into broader sentiment here, given the amount of front page time and discussion, so the dismissal seemed excessively brusque.
It may be that you underestimated how strongly your words come across to the reader, which is a common pitfall with online discussion forums; words often don't seem as harsh when we formulate them in our own mind as they do when read by others.
> Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
Could you explain how this applies? I don't mean to be difficult -- really. I appreciate that Hacker News is a great place for discussion, and I very much appreciate that's partly because of the work you're doing.
I'd just like to think that my criticism is thoughtful and is neither rigidly nor generically negative: I pointed out specific omissions and offered an analogy to explain the immaturity and cluelessness that I see in the piece -- not just that the claims are wrong but that the perspective is delivered so badly that it's difficul to take seriously. It wasn't meant to be unkind or a swipe; I didn't call names or sneer; it wasn't a generic tangent. It was the best way I could find to characterize the ways the piece's tone and content work together, undermining it and (almost certainly) rubbing people the wrong way.
No worries, here are the words/phrases that set off alarms for me:
> a profound absence of (historical) awareness
> weird, presumptuous, sophomoric sanctimoniousness
> strange insistence
> [the whole Jonestown (?) bit as a metaphor – at least a little disproportionate, no?]
> I hear the same cluelessness in this piece
I guess the issue is the number of negative terms and characterizations all crammed into one paragraph. It just seems to lay it on too heavy.
The writer is clearly wrestling with something and trying to process it, and the post has tapped into broader sentiment here, given the amount of front page time and discussion, so the dismissal seemed excessively brusque.
It may be that you underestimated how strongly your words come across to the reader, which is a common pitfall with online discussion forums; words often don't seem as harsh when we formulate them in our own mind as they do when read by others.