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Comment by leviathant | Hacker News Reader

There is definitely a bias favoring Apple on Hacker News, but that doesn't mean that posting anything that does not praise Apple will get you voted down.

You just have to make sure that when you do decide to make a post that points out flaws in Apple this or that, your post should be well thought out - and avoid being inflammatory.

Yes, these should be guidelines for any post here on HN, but you probably have less leeway when you're challenging someone's relatively established mindset. Protip: Throwing around the phrase "fan boy" does no one any good, and certainly won't help your karma.

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> Throwing around the phrase "fan boy" does no one any good, and certainly won't help your karma.

True but in many ways the 'definite bias favoring Apple on Hacker News' does actually validate the concept of a cluster of people that could usefully be described by a distinct term. If 'fanboys' is considered an offensive slur (as it appears to be) then I'm personally happy to use the term 'Apple fans' but they are essentially referring to the phenomena/grouping.

Personally I'm less interested in karma than contributing to the insight-fullness and accuracy of the discussion. I'll gladly wear my -20 comments as a badge of pride as long as they do this.

> If 'fanboys' is considered an offensive slur (as it appears to be) then I'm personally happy to use the term 'Apple fans' but they are essentially referring to the phenomena/grouping.

Please do. 'fanboys' certainly is not a distinct term that is useful to describe a cluster of people, as you say, at least not any more.

Aside: Harry McCracken recently wrote a (rather long) essay on the origin and evolution of the word 'fanboy': http://technologizer.com/2010/05/17/fanboy/

Interesting article (or at least the first part of it). Just to clarify I did not believe that believe that the word 'fanboy' by itself specifically referred to Apple 'evangelists'. The meaning as defined by the article does however describe fairly succinctly a certain attitude that is consistent with the attitude of some Apple 'supporters' and 'fans'.

The word is certainly older than I'd expected but the meaning seems to have remained pretty constant.

> If 'fanboys' is considered an offensive slur

If you remove the offensive slur, the comment would end up just saying, "many people who liked previous Apple products also like the new iPhone." Without the offensive slur, it's clear that the comment is practically content free, and likely not worth saying in the first place.

I think you are going overboard about the 'offensive slur'. If you replace 'fan boys' with 'uncritical supporters' or 'evangelical fans' then the point stands. If you are arguing that there doesn't exist a certain grouping of uncritical and fanatical Apple fans then state your case. You may find this notion unflattering and disagreeable but it is a legitimate argument regardless of whether you happen to find it offensive. Don't think you are going to kill discussion of it by repeating the word 'offensive slur'.

Secondly the original comment said a lot more than just that phrase which makes your argument incorrect, worse than than content free.

True, I shouldn't have repeated "offensive slur" in the second sentence. It would have read better as, "Without, it's clear that..."

> You just have to make sure that when you do decide to make a post that points out flaws in Apple this or that, your post should be well thought out - and avoid being inflammatory.

Actually this argument reminds me of the concept of an 'Uncle Tom' for African Americans. Sometime I think you are right and other times you I believe you just need to 'tell it like it is'.

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