[davnicwil]

One con certainly is being unprepared for and therefore discouraged by an unfortunate rule of the internet comment box: it tends to heavily skew toward disagreements and nitpicks with whatever you put out there.

If you don't account for this you'll come away with the impression that nobody gets value from the thoughts you've put out, when the reality may be the opposite.

Sites like HN with upvotes help a bit with balancing this signal, but it's still a bit disheartening at times. You have to consciously think about it and convince yourself it's the case, probably before even publishing, certainly before reading the comments!

If you're interested I wrote a blog post [0] covering aspects of this that you may enjoy (which went to the HN front page, so you can see the comments Vs upvotes on that post itself -- yep this is getting meta rather quickly :-)

[0] https://davnicwil.com/tips-for-making-writing-more-fun/

[jesuscript]

The best way to test this theory of skewed negativity is to find a product you are pleased with, go on Amazon, and pull up all the low star reviews.

You would have never guessed just how wrong and loud comments can be.

[blowski]

Some of my HN comments will simultaneously have only very critical replies and lots of upvotes. It’s hard to interpret that.

[hugs_vs_toph]

It means you are popular with the plebs while smart people disagree with you.

[s1artibartfast]

Possible, but not necessarily. Commenters aren't always more patrician or knowledgeable, just more motivated.

Examples of vocal minorities abound.

[marginalia_nu]

I'll frequently upvote something I disagree with because it's interesting.