[dang]

Can you please make your substantive points without being snarky? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

This is particularly important when correcting misimpressions. If your comment is neutral, the neutral reader can absorb the new information fairly easily. But if you're hostile (as with "ah yes, that, definitely that"), then you're also signaling a pre-existing battle. The neutral reader gets confused by these mixed signals and feels caught in crossfire, which is not a state that's good for learning.

The upside of battle language is that it rallies any readers who are already on your side, but this is not a good move in the HN game. We want curious conversation here, not escalating intensity or repetition of already hardened positions. The value of curious conversation can perhaps be measured by how much the participants, including the silent readers, move in the process.

[justnotworthit]

Of all the worthless, flame-inducing posts in hacker news comments, "Ah yes, that study" is the example that need to be highlighted?

[Noumenon72]

It may be more educational to contest one that most readers might not realize is problematic (I didn't bat an eye) than one that is obviously flamebait.

[andrewflnr]

As a general principle, explaining edge cases are helpful for elucidating tricky distinctions.

[dang]

I've done that at least 40,000 times. This isn't a linear ordering!

There are many principles, which we're discovering together, around curious conversation. I went into this one in detail because I think it's interesting.

Btw, if you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been—for example, a "worthless, flame-inducing" one—the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at [e-mail].

[UglyToad]

Thanks for the reminder, while I might not agree on an individual level where the line between calling out misinformation and partisan-bad-faith-point-scoring lies I think despite the repeated edits I was over the line here.

While it feels good to post, it doesn't really help the quality of discussion.