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Comment by humanistbot | Hacker News Reader

> the pedants who have come out in force

The only reason this made the top of the front page is because this was written in a way that seems intentionally deceptive in order to make you click. I'd argue the author is being a pedant even more, and did it first. Had they used a more honest title, people wouldn't be upset. But then it wouldn't have made the front page.

I hate this trend in journalism that can be summed up as: "I'm going to frame something in a confusing, counterintuitive way, then explain it in a straightforward way, in order to make you think I'm smart and make you think you've learned something really complex." I see everywhere else on the Internet. HN is supposed to filter this out.

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It’s not journalism, it’s a tweet. From a Mario fan account.

Maybe take the rest of the day off? Work through the anger?

Aren't tweets viewed as journalism these days? Or perhaps better phrased: Can't tweets be considered journalism? As much as I am loathe to admit it, I don't think that something being on Twitter excludes it from being journalism. That said, I don't know that this tweet counts as journalism. But I also don't know that it doesn't count.

Tweets by a professional journalist with employer name in bio are a grey zone, but tweets from a super Mario fan account are firmly not journalism.

That sure sounds like it's discrediting citizen journalism or amateur journalism.

> Maybe take the rest of the day off? Work through the anger?

This is an insulting and inappropriate response. I'm not going to engage with the rest of your comment if this is how you're going to act.

It’s from a place of love my friend, a Tweet is but a Tweet. Your inner peace is more important. Take a nice walk. :-)

> Maybe take the rest of the day off? Work through the anger?

This is nice by Twitter standards but it's still an ad hominem, I hope this doesn't become common on HN. It never leads to anything interesting and overall makes conversations worse.

I would say the same about middlebrow dismissals like the one that comment was responding to, but apparently if you make a comment like yours toward them it's a bad thing.

The parent is too harsh with that tweet but it's not an ad hominem. You're allowed to hate things. I also hate the same thing they're talking about, I just don't think the OP deserves to be described this way.

How is it ad hominem to say that somebody's comment is excessively harsh to somebody, but not ad hominem to say that somebody's comment is attacking somebody? They're extremely similar sentiments, and I personally wouldn't categorize either as ad hominem for the same reason — a person is distinct from the tone of their comment.

The AH isn’t saying that a comment is too harsh, it’s saying that the commenter has anger problems and should do something about them. It’s uncalled for and condescending. I don’t see a reason to say that besides trying to make someone angry and start a useless dispute.

When I spent a bit too long on reddit, I started to realize that all threads there degenerate into this, given enough attention. Without moderation, it just feels like a series of dead-end discussions where trying to participate isn’t worth the effort because any nuanced arguments will fly out the window when people get tired of arguments and want to start fighting. I hope this place doesn’t become that.

It's video game trivia on a twitter fan account.

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