| HN Mirror

Those guidelines say "Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something. Send it to hn@ycombinator.com.". That's what the parent commenter should have done.

And "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."; your comment is commenting about voting, and this guideline sets a precedent that boring reading is not desirable.

and "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article?"" which you are doing about the guidelines.

and "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." which reinforces the idea that uninteresting comments are not deisable. "The title is bad" is not a very interesting comment.

Pet annoyance recently is seeing people comment "why am I being downvoted? What I said was true" when what they said was arguably true - but also low effort, flamebait, tangent, off-topic, or similar; "it is correct" alone isn't enough. Since this has been annoying me I want to write more, here are examples:

Searching Algolia for 'downvoted': https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41039279 which says "Microsoft is like Disney, they steal from others and trounce others for stealing from them. Absurd people." followed by "Sad to see this extremely historically accurate and relevant comment downvoted.". It's arguably true - but also arguably false - but definitely a single line of low effort flamebait. Actually justifying the claim would be better.

And https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41027729 - about Kamala Harris "I hate to say it yet I don't think she's polling well because even in 2024 I don't think America is ready to allow a woman of colour be POTUS." reply "You’re downvoted, but you’re correct.". Maybe it is correct, but they could at least argue the case for their claim? Something more substantial than a one line which is basically "America racist"? ("Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes." - guidelines).

and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41008957 CrowdStrike thread -> substantive comment on centralised control and security -> risks of splaying personal valuables out in front of everyone at security -> security tried to screw me because they had to do their job -> I got downvoted "by some swede who doesn't think this stuff can happen"; assuming the downvote is because people don't believe it happened, rather than because it's marginally - if at all - relevant, substantive, thoughtful, interesting.