Not always what you want. I'm sure many people think the pun that the top 50 comments race to make on Reddit is the most hilarious thing in the world. But it also gets in the way of discussion as you have to scroll/collapse your way past.

I think we could do a lot worse than anecdotes, but what I find weird is how the anecdotes on HN are always so smug, like this one. "Heh, my old co-worker thought my 'little hacker buddies' couldn't hack his website ;b Let's just say they put quite a dent in it heh ;b."

Bit of an eye roll.

It's a problem exactly because it's up-voted, it's derailing. Happens on so many articles recently. Either derailing by a personal anecdote, or by the "middlebrow dismissal": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920

Both are equally derailing. In this case, I would much rather the comments be about the actual OS in question or the trend of big companies crowdsourcing security (penetration testing).

Admittedly I'm prone to posting stories and I'm thinking of not doing so / doing it less.

Look at this story. Some guy, who honestly seems to have pretty questionable judgment did a thing and it was a bad idea.

What does that really have to do with this challenge from MS about a custom version of Linux? I would say almost nothing.