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Comment by sigzero | Hacker News Reader

Wow, ok. It was an attempt at humor. So now my question is is HN not the place for that? Or do HN folks generally get behind RoR? Or...do I just need to be more thoughtful and not thoughtless in my postings?

Help me be a better HN commentator, please.

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Humor is often OK. I suspect the problem here is that your comment can be taken in an antagonistic tone that many people have in regards to DHH and the 37signals philosophy. That sort of tone is generally not accepted here, especially as a one-liner without substance.

I read that as "that sort of tone is generally not accepted here in regards to the 37signals philosophy."

It was meant as that sort of tone is generally not accepted toward anyone/anything, especially as a one-liner because it doesn't add anything to the discussion. It was probably perceived that way because there are many people that have that sort of attitude toward DHH and 37signals. So any intent of humor was lost.

It has nothing to do with agreement or disagreement with their philosophy.

Okay, I get that. It really didn't bring anything to the table. I will remember that. It wasn't meant to be antagonistic though. Just for the record.

In other words, this isn't reddit.

My point goes deeper - reddit hates RoR. Mention ruby and you will be trampled.

The OP is seemingly negative on Ruby (which is cleared up through subsequent comments) and he gets trampled. When I say "this isn't reddit" I mean, there isn't the same RoR hatred here that one notices there. That's all.

If you get down-modded to 0, then you know you did something wrong. Humor is typically hit or miss, sometimes it kills, sometimes it doesn't. That being said, it is an online community and standard mob-rule still applies. I wouldn't dwell on a -4 too much (especially if no one will even comment to tell you why they down-modded). It happens, and no you're not a bad person ;-)

Yes, and it is my impression that the downmodding has become very aggressive recently. It's not for rude posts only anymore. Just looking at the above poster: he adds a polite request for explanations to improve his posting, and yet his reply gets brought down.

Agreed * 100

About a year ago, yes, that would have been good, but HN has sort of been overrun by a gang of douche bags since then, so no, try not to be funny.

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