This is the second day in a row where a post about Go in a negative light was flagged. The first one was an extremely detailed criticism, maintained the front page, and was flagged like crazy. What gives?
This is the second day in a row where a post about Go _from the same blog_ has been posted. I think that's enough, especially since it's mostly a knee jerk reaction from that very HN post from yesterday.
> This is the second day in a row where a post about Go _from the same blog_ has been posted.
Unless you consider this post either spam or off topic (and I personally don't believe it falls into either category), then flagging the post is not in keeping with my understanding of the site guidelines.
Yes, exactly, although I personally don't see how a substantive post, responding to a well-discussed issue from the previous day, could possibly qualify as "spam". I guess others agree, since the post did not remain flagged.
Who cares if it is a legitimate criticism and makes unique points in both cases (also, they were both written two years apart!)? Some call it "inflammatory" but it has scientific and critical value nonetheless.
> Who cares if it is a legitimate criticism and makes unique points in both cases?
Clearly, the people flagging it care, whether because they disagree with your assessment of it providing legitimate criticism and unique points in both cases, or because they think some other quality it has outweighs that in assessing it against the bar for belonging on HN.
> Some call it "inflammatory" but it has scientific and critical value nonetheless.
Value is subjective and people clearly disagree with you on this point.
If you find it does not have value to you, don't upvote it and ignore it. Don't flag it to try to hide it from people who it may have value for. It's clearly not spam, so it's not your job to determine whether it has value for other people.
Flagging posts that would not fit on HN or would just cause pointless flamewars is acceptable. Given the state of this thread, I think it's even more justified.
"Users [flag] post as breaking the guidelines or otherwise not belonging on HN."
I've seen far more inflammatory commentary/criticism in the tech community over the years. This post is honestly pretty mild if you look at it objectively.
The fact that a small subset of the Go community is triggered by this post and can't behave in a civil manner isn't a reason to flag it.
To play devil's advocate: this author is known for often having a combative style. There's usually lots of good substance alongside that style, but the tone is what it is, and you could argue that it's needlessly incendiary. (Though in their defense, the post yesterday was self-described at the very top as "a proper rant")
HN is a powder keg of emotions about programming languages, and fasterthanlime's posts tend to be... shall we say, "sparky"
But that is literally one of the oldest logical fallacies in the book - Ad Homenem - defined as "(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31191700