[aaronbrethorst]

You make a good point, which proves that neither of us actually knows which phrasing Dave Winer meant. Don't be a jerk. We live in the same city and might actually meet at some point. I don't like being on bad terms with people I've never met.

[techiferous]

"Don't be a jerk."

If you read his comment carefully you will see that he simply stated a fact. Stating a fact is not being a jerk. However, by saying "don't be a jerk" you've added a personal insult to the conversation.

Tone is really hard to convey on the Internet and I also hope you don't misread the tone of this comment. I'm writing this in the spirit of a friendly reminder that I myself need sometimes, too.

[mlinsey]

I'm sorry if I came off as attacking you: there wasn't any intent to do that. I just was trying to point out where I think you misread Winer's article, which is in the grand scheme of things a pretty minor mistake, probably not even worth the downvotes. I certainly wasn't trying to make it personal.

I think one issue may have been that what I wrote in my post was just the first two sentences; the whole second paragraph is cut-and-pasted from Winer. In that paragraph Winer himself comes off as pretty aggressive, and by quoting all of that it may have made my comment read as more caustic than it was designed to be. (though I guess we should heed techiferous' point about tone on the internet and give Winer a little benefit of the doubt here too!)

This community (and discussion forums in general) is only useful if we sometimes can correct each other's mistakes and use evidence to argue against each others' positions. However, we should always do so in ways that never make it feel like anyone is being attacked, and it's my bad if I fell short of that.

I sent Aaron a direct message on Facebook already saying all this, but I wanted to clarify for everyone else here, especially anyone who flagged my comment: I was somehow locked out of HN starting sometime shortly after I made my original reply to Aaron and ending just a minute ago. My best guess is that this must have been caused by some mechanism triggered when several people flag your post but a mod hasn't decided whether to ban you yet. Just speculation, though: it's also possible my co-founder logged into my account and turned on noprocrast as a subtle message to get off HN and get back to work! :) That's actually pretty good advice that I'll be following now. Have a good few weeks, HN.

[aaronbrethorst]

Thanks Mark, I appreciate the message on Facebook. I haven't had an opportunity to get back to you yet (my day has been hectic), but I'll send you a response later when I have a chance to do it justice.

[cema]

Thank you for putting the conversation back in the civil tone!

[fauigerzigerk]

A jerk is someone disagreeing with you apparently. It is completely obvious that Dave Winer did not invoke "the classic 'my mom's going to love this' line". In fact he rejected exactly that line. Mentioning an individual feature his mother might actually like doesn't suddenly reverse the gist of his argument.