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by epochwolf 5551 days ago
Example of a comment I find mediocre: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2433896

It doesn't really add anything to the discussion. Snarky comments really don't belong here on HN and I've noticed a trend of them getting far more up votes than they used to.
1 comments
jedsmith 5551 days ago
Ah, but neither does yours!

Why does the mediocrity apply to the comment you're replying to, but not your own? Your comment is dripping with snark and someone called you on it (thankfully). I actually think your comment is shittier than the one you're replying to, because you put yourself on a pedestal of telling the rest of us what to do.

Was that comment at the top of the discussion before you snarked it to oblivion? Probably not. It was most likely already in the deep hell of very light gray, and your content-free comment just made it worse. Calling the kettle black, in my opinion.

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javert 5551 days ago
Actually, this is an example of a "mean" comment.

I think it was fine to say the guy's comment was "dripping with snark" (a specific criticism), but not that it was "shitty," and not that he was "telling the rest of us what to do."

I would call those bits "mean" because the amount of insult they add is disproportionate to the amount of content they have. In other words, it would have been worthwile (IMHO) to find a better way to say the same thing.

Now, the whole point is that who am I to say what's mean? And I agree, hence the proposal I made to allow people to "vote" on what's mean, and have a threshhold. I mean hell, different communities find different things to be unacceptable "mean," and that's fine.

"Mean" for a girl scout meeting and "mean" for the LKML are pretty different; I think HN should probably be somewhere in between.

And the point is, if HN becomes like the LKML, we're gonna enjoy it a lot less; that's why we want to limit meanness, not because we're big softies.

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danssig 5551 days ago
And now you've just provided another snarky, content-free comment that consists of nothing but an attack. Further, it's longer (and therefor more intrusive) than the comment it addresses.

Can we please stop this silly fained-hypocrisy treasure hunt? There is certainly appeal to a game everyone can play, but it's a pointless waste of time. What exactly do you hope to achieve? A world where spammers and trolls say what ever they want and well meaning people just remain silent?

Sometimes the only way to stop immoral violence is with immoral violence.

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