I don't want to discourage intelligent discussion, but your penned thoughts are about 3x the wordcount of the original article.
Or - tl;dr
Or - tl;dr
The more interesting question is whether or not they'll get stuck in EDT or not. People have found several tricks to escape that particular jurisdiction only to have the trolls invent new counters. It sounds like they've filed a Declaratory Judgement action here, but it's hard to tell. But DJAs can be quite complicated[1]. So you can practically have your case dismissed as not yet "ripe" only to have them turn around and sue you in a jurisdiction where they can get money out of you fast (usually East Texas).
What I'd like to know from grellas is whether this particular DJA appears likely to succeed? Because I wouldn't be surprised any more to see it fail due to some oddball procedural trick, only to have them file suit in their home court the very next day. I even remember one time where a patent troll even abused a quirky local court rule in East Texas to file a day early and gain priority. In fact, I think that was complications arising out of that case that led to the shuttering of the excellent Patent Troll Tracker blog.
[1] See, e.g. http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2012/03/3m-v-avery-walking-t...
Short and sharp writing is like candy for the brain. It feels rewarding to consume, but ultimately has little educational merit.
Taking a chainsaw to grellas' posts would remove the detail that makes them fantastic and educational reads.
I've written short posts about patents before. One of them got 72 upvotes this week. Nobody learned a damn thing from it.
Hacker News needs more of grellas, and less of me. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Writing for the web is different than writing for print. If grellas wants to maximize the spread of his ideas, he would benefit from learning a new approach.
Your post adds no value whatsoever. Think twice before hitting "reply" if all you are going to do is post a negative comment that is utterly irrelevant.
The point of my post was asking the parent to consider this point.
Simply put, I would MUCH prefer to see a long, well-thought comment by someone who has obviously put effort into their post than someone deriding them for having been so wordy.
Regrettably, I downvote so much more often than I used to (because there is, whether it's acknowledged or not, a battle between the 'old guard' and the new) that I am not able to leave commentary where I once would have, nor would my ire be appropriate by my own standard, so I often drive-by-downvote, all the while envisioning the day where HN will either be saved from those who prefer to make short, catchy quips than well thought diatribes, or I will leave.
I don't mean to make this all dramatic, as I will likely leave unnoticed when that day comes, but I wanted to give some sort of additional commentary before saying that I also downvoted each of Omron's posts, and I don't feel that sort of post is at all appropriate here.
Grellas' commentary is often invaluable on legal matters such as this, and I am visibly disappointed when I see legal threads where I could use some insight, and can't find a topical post by him on the matter as his posts are almost always the most enlightening for laypersons such as myself that are nevertheless interested.
Lastly, while I generally abhor the notion of judging people by account ages or karma values, I think Grellas deserves far better than to be asked to shorten his posts by someone with 82 karma, though I would be just as vocal if Oman had 20,000 karma.
I'd be fine with requiring an explanation that was visible only to the down-voted poster. I actually wish that more people would down-vote more freely, in the hope that low-quality comments would be more discouraged than they currently are.
HN could easily make down-voting comments a requirement and then add a simply feature by which down-vote comments are folded below the original post and not visible. You could then have a "view down-vote comments" link that would reveal that thread. In other words, keep them out of the main conversation so that they don't clutter things yet make them available for review by interested parties.
I see that, but am prioritizing the good of the group over the re-education of the individual. I think the majority of new posters will catch on to the norms of the site quickly, and those that don't will likely move on if they don't get responses.
HN could easily make down-voting comments a requirement and then add a simply feature by which down-vote comments are folded below the original post and not visible.
Fine idea. I posted it as a feature request here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4209304
I generally skim walls of text as well but the post was well-written and -reasoned.
However, better layout (ie. more paragraphs) would help.
Yes. I saw that huge block of text after just reading the GigaOM article and just skipped right over it. I came here to see what people thought on the matter, but I wasn't about to invest it all on one post.
Still, downvoting the other guy that mentioned the length of the piece is pretty crappy. "It adds no value to the conversation". Hell it doesn't. His thought was exactly my thought and the cause of my reaction (to skip the War and Peace-length comment).
For a "comment that didn't add value" he sure got a lot of comments.
The average attention span of the internet is not the best guide for an informative writing style. I like the fact that you will get long thought-out posts on here as it means people are actually expressing themselves with some level of depth rather than worrying about the needs of the easily bored.