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by dang
3844 days ago
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What you did here is not cool. On HN, we start from the benefit of the doubt. A person can be both a programmer and a judge. pqdbr's comment was coherent and plausible. The null hypothesis is therefore that pqdbr is making a valuable contribution. It's fine and interesting to look through someone's comment history for background. It can also be ok to ask questions based on that, but this is always delicate and must be done respectfully. But to dig around for a bit, leap to a sinister conclusion, and fling it at them with a couple insults for good measure is a serious violation of civility on this site. HN members with outlier backgrounds (and 'judge' certainly is one) are some of the most valuable contributors we have; doubly so—if not more—when they speak computing too. Imagine what it would feel like to share from one's expertise in the most on-topic way possible, only to be randomly slapped in the face and have your character impugned. You owe pqdbr a lot more of an apology than "Cool! Always happy to be wrong when evidence supports it." (Edit: which, now that I think of it, reads more like a humblebrag than making amends.) We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10751003 and marked it off-topic. |
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That said, my comment wasn't particularly harsh and I think it's reasonable to be suspect of such lofty claims, especially with basically no proof to be found anywhere in a cursory search. One commenter did some serious research to find Portuguese language proof and that is why this was even an issue.
Had the commenter been full of BS, which is the overwhelming majority in these cases, nobody would have made much of a fuss about it.
I also expressed my gratitude for pointing out the errant conclusion to the other poster who did research, so I have no problem admitting a false conclusion. Being wrong with a lot of support (upvotes) seems to be my primary sin here.