[6d0debc071]

Being sincerely complimentary... or at least addressing points you might want to bring up in a delicate manner... requires a shift in the way people relate to others. It seems to me that taking a handful of generic compliments and sprinkling them among your real message will start to induce people to skim read it as a high noise to signal ratio.

[nkohari]

I never suggested that someone should misrepresent or soften their position to avoid making someone feel bad. If you hate an article, I want to know that you hate it, and why. I'm only asking that everyone remember that they're speaking with other human beings.

Maybe a reasonable litmus test for the HN crowd is: if the article was instead a speech at a conference, would you go up to the speaker afterwards (or during Q&A) and say what you're going to say? If not, why?