[bargl]

I agree that not everyone deserves a gold star but I tend to try the carrot over the stick in most instances. I do beat around the bush more than I should, and that's something I personally need to work on.

I realize that a lot of times terse can be better, and you modified your own comment better than I ever could. >"You can do better! Here is how it can be improved!"

That little bit of encouragement could be the support that changes the recipients reaction from "F-U man you don't know me" to "Wow, thanks for that criticism, I'll get on that." And you've only added 11 words.

High ranking HN comments tend to be negative, which leads me to feel like HN is not very supportive. This isn't the only metric, but having a good ratio of positive to negative feedback (assuming everything is equally actionable) is important. http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/03/the_ideal_praise-to-criticis...

>Also - "yeah I know I haven't had my account here long" are defense mechanisms, don't use them. You're a member of the community now, you get a voice like everyone else. Thank you, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5636314 this kind of thing has made me hesitant to use terms like "our community".