[interlagos]

Herein lies the problem with Hacker News -- raganwald may be a regular, but such a completely irrelevant, bizarre reference to John Gruber has zero place in this story. I intentionally left a counterpoint that got the expected downvotes, but how about there be some consistency.

This coddling of the regular names diminishes this site.

http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

[raganwald]

OT -> ‘Off Topic'

[interlagos]

Yes, no kidding. Gruber is a polarizing figure on HN (largely because he is an unabashed hyper-cheerleader for Apple the corporation -- seriously, his infatuation with AAPL profit levels, margins, and P/E ratios is hilarious), and you just had to drag him into a conversation having nothing whatsoever to do with him. If the populace of HN didn't recognize your name as a guy who lives on HN, you would be living in negative double digit land.

[raganwald]

We should test your conjecture that there's a "pro-raganwald bias." Ping me the next time there's a contentious topic like Gruber on the front page, and we could try three vaguely similar comments: one from you, one from me, and one from a throwaway.

The results may shock me and ought to make for an interesting blog post at the very least.