[pg]

It's hard to leave a mischaracterization of your ideas unanswered on a forum where people know you participate. I don't worry what people say about me on other sites, because I don't even know what they're saying. But here I do know, and everyone knows I know. Which means in effect someone can call me out here, by phrasing a comment in such a way that if I don't respond it seems like it's because I have no response to make.

I think perhaps getting rid of points will mitigate this problem though.

[patio11]

On the theory that a little absurdity helps keep everything in perspective:

The problem is you think that you know that people know that you know that somebody thinks you don't know what you're talking about, but you don't know that people know that you know that somebody thinks you don't know what you're talking about, and in fact it is quite possible that people think that you know that they know that you know what you're talking about, so if you just thought that people think that you know that they know that you know what you're talking about, then it wouldn't matter if they think that you know that they know that you know what you're talking about at all, which has the side effect of mooting whether they know that you know that somebody thinks you don't know what you're talking about.

Oof, my parser just blew the stack. Short version: you're well-liked here and have objectively extant accomplishments elsewhere (presumably a source of more happiness than the aggregate opinion of the HN community). The existence of people who disagree with you does not diminish either your general well-likedness or your other accomplishments. Don't worry about them -- the rest of us certainly don't.

[radu_floricica]

> by phrasing a comment in such a way that if I don't respond it seems like it's because I have no response to make

I dare say not many people here would fall for that, and you shouldn't really care about those who do. Most are still surprised you take the time to answer as much as you do.

I'd say the problems with points are different though. From the way my comments are voted recently I noticed three things:

- the upvoted comments are those which fit the common opinion, and upvoting them is used to express it.

- the ones I honestly considered good and original stay at 1-2. I have absolutely no idea if they made an impact whatsoever.

- from the way scores fluctuate I'm guessing some amount of downvoting

Overall I tend to believe that HN is more and more aggregating _opinions_ instead of _ideas_.

[nostrademons]

http://xkcd.com/386/

It'd be nice if people recognized that sometimes when folks don't respond, it's because they have better things to do, and not because they agree with what's being said.

[philk]

Sure, but if you respond there are two categories of people:

a) People who generally like you and your essays, who will continue to agree with you, and

b) People who don't like you or your essays, who will take it as further evidence that you don't know what you're talking about.

and by replying you're just making the people from category b) post more.

But here I do know, and everyone knows I know

Not really. There's no "this post was read by pg" flag next to it. If you don't reply, at worst people will think you just couldn't be bothered to respond, which isn't a bad thing.

[edw519]

It's hard to leave a mischaracterization of your ideas unanswered on a forum where people know you participate.

Yes it is. And here's something I learned by accident...

Many times I have been challenged by something I said. Often a great point, but just as often something totally illogical. I always felt compelled to engage immediately or else I'd look like I was acquiescing to the other.

Then a strange thing happened. I got so busy that I could only visit a few times per day. So when I returned to a thread I had commented in, I was challenged, and others had responded instead of me. And their responses were often much better than mine would have been.

So now that's my default. I let others respond for me simply because I'm not here. And I've been very pleasantly surprised. For every jerk, there are 10 people ready to downvote or comment.

There's a natural tendency to stick up for yourself, so it's tough to let it go and give others a chance to do it for you. But give it a try anyway. Have faith in this community. When you're too busy to respond, we've got your back.

[mhartl]

I second this. Recently I posted a story about a project I'm working on (Rails Tutorial, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1138149), and someone made a trollish comment I felt obliged to rebut. I was pleasantly surprised to see other HN readers come to my defense with comments and downvotes. I did end up responding, but I probably shouldn't have, and next time I'll probably sit on my hands and see how it shakes out.