My comments in this entire conversation, also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720569 (at one point, each of mine was <0, now upvoted out of nagativity, thanks! :))
Wrt create and bitdiddle, downvote seems like the appropriate response. It appears that create is factually wrong, and bitdiddle was saying something irrelevant about stock price.
Wrt your comments on the 1984-Amazon-copyrights thing, I think you have something there. HN has too many people who think copyright laws are bad. Many here even seem to think that the GPL is bad (see comments on Zed's GPL rant). And many of them feel this very strongly. That's just the community; when you come in here and say that following copyright law is a good thing, to many people it doesn't sound like a reasonable thing to say, it seems like a harmful thing to say. They turn into white blood cells and stamp out the infection. :)
I don't even bother opening the comment pages on GPL and copyright articles anymore. I don't see any light being generated there; only heat.
I feel it as a pun on a well-known idiom in other languages, that would translate verbatim to more about smoke than fire i.e. something of no substance or use, most often discussion. It is a certainly saying in my native language.
MJF: Hemminger is claiming Microsoft put the LIC code under the GPL because it was in violation of the GPL. Is this true? Did you have to suggest to (Microsoft Platform Strategy Chief Sam) Ramji & Co. that they were in violation in order to get them to agree to release the code under GPLv2?
GKH: I didn’t have to “suggest” anything, I only had to merely point out the obviousness of the situation :)
MJF: If this isn’t accurate, could you let me know how to interpret (Hemminger’s) comments on his blog.
GKH: No, that sounds accurate.
[...]
Ramji didn’t come right out and deny the GPL violations claim, but I guess that’s as much as we’re going to get.
Where the 3rd one is a simple WFM, which is helpful because it establishes that not everyone is having these problems, the 2nd comment sounds condescending and ignores the problems that the parent is having in favour of bringing up an unrelated bug that should be fixed soon.
Seeing the first link, I find this: "Although it may be enticing to spend a few years with a slick point and click IDE such as VisualStudio and pretend you are programming..."
Is that a thoughtful comment? I don't think so. I think that this kind of comment is what groupthink is really made of.
People thinks that the audience of the site is mostly anti-microsoft and happily insults "the others", hoping that this kind of remark will be rewarded.
Heck! If it turns out that enough people dislike that behaviour and downvote, you can still make a story asking for a revision. It seems to have worked, BTW.
OK, it might not be the case for all the comments you meant, but there are many and the general tone of them really didn't invite to more detailed read.
IOW: if you have something interesting to say, try to write respectfully and to the point. It's posible to say you don't like certain IDE without saying their users "pretend" to be programming.
Create's and bitdiddle's responses here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720924
This response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720909
Is identical to this one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720766
My comments in this entire conversation, also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720569 (at one point, each of mine was <0, now upvoted out of nagativity, thanks! :))