[striking]

He mentioned getting some egregiously awful comments, specifically over email. I quickly scrolled through the HN thread and didn't see many, not on "nazi" or "death threat" level.

Perhaps the people that read HN and then email other people are not innocent, but there's a huge gap between the number of people who comment on HN and the number of people who just read HN.

I think HN comment posters are generally innocent. I would guess that the storm came from elsewhere, or from particularly unscrupulous people who happen to read HN. Stuff like the mentioned subject ends up bringing out the paranoid people, which often causes some seriously unhinged commentary.

[moosingin3space]

The HN commenter literally threatened to sue the developer, even calling the developer a "good target". That sort of combative language is toxicity.

[striking]

The response to his comment was immediate, unanimous, and unequivocal.

HN mods responded, the comment was flagged and killed and downvoted to hell.

Also, the way it was written may not have been the way he intended to come across. Read dang's comment, as well as his downthread comment.

All things considered, HN is definitely not a bad place.

[mikemcquaid]

The mods did well there, I agree, but it was the top-voted comment for a fair while (most of the working day, European time). Perhaps that says something about European vs. American attitudes on such thing, I dunno (I'm European).

[moosingin3space]

> All things considered, HN is definitely not a bad place.

While I am very critical of many aspects of HN, I have had some excellent discussion here. I just wish it were more consistently good.

[striking]

I haven't had higher quality discussion with this many people anywhere else on the internet. Sometimes there are not so great comment threads, sometimes people decide to take things too seriously and fail to pick up on humor... but generally I think this is a great place.