Comment by Imustaskforhelp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Imustaskforhelp | Hacker News Reader

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Imustaskforhelp

This is really not the type of legacy that I want to leave behind on hackernews but then again, I have been vocal that I just write what I think. Literally. It has its flaws but I am not sugar coating it.

Sometimes I am unable to explain myself but the thing is that I write on HN to point out of some idea, some discussion. It's better written here than lost and yes most of my ideas might be incoherent but they make perfect sense to me in the moment, its quite hard to explain.

It seems that you have made an opinion & judgement about me and that's okay. I don't wish to change it.

I suppose while writing your comment, you must have been quite pissed to write it. Sorry for pissing you off in such sense, That wasn't my intention but I do hope that you can realize that your comment comes across as rude and quite frankly, I don't know how to respond to it and I don't want to throw myself to this level or continue in an argumentative tone.

We are more common than different actually. I suppose we both love open source and might share many hobbies. The difference is small when you think about it.

I hope that instead of fighting on our differences, we can work with our agreements. Teach me instead of such tone for I am interested in learning & let's hope that both of us and everyone can make a better future for the world & everyone living in it :D

Have a nice day, my friend. Hope the future's good for ya!

So answer me this, what's your favourite open source project and why? and I will answer mine when you respond later :]

Well that's the best reply I've seen to someone being cranky on the Internet. I'm not even mad.

Take care.

Great response.

> Teach me instead of such tone for I am interested in learning

Here are some notes:

Run on sentences and lack of punctuation make your writing hard to follow; brevity can be effective.

For each sentence, choose a subject, verb, predicate, proposition, etc. to form a single clause, but don't compound multiple such clauses into a single sentence. Break sentences up with punctuation so that the eye rests more easily when scanning. Eye fatigue is a real thing that good writers know how to manage. Contractions can also help clean up the noise.

It's okay to occasionally have compound sentences, such as this one, but too many of those leave your reader's head spinning.

It's fine and encouraged to write your initial draft in stream-of-consciousness form as you have, but an editing pass would make a worthwhile difference for slightly more effort. You do well at breaking up ideas and sentences into new paragraphs, but within those paragraphs it can be hard to keep up.

As an example, your first sentence could be rewritten from

  This is really not the type of legacy that I want to leave behind on hackernews but then again, I have been vocal that I just write what I think. Literally. It has its flaws but I am not sugar coating it.

to

  This isn't the type of legacy I want to leave behind on Hacker News. I prefer to write in a stream-of-consciousness style. This approach has its flaws, but it feels more natural to me.

Notice I trimmed some unnecessary words such as "really", split up a sentence, removed an unnecessary conjunction, added a comma before the "but" since the sentence contains two independent clauses.

I replaced "I am not sugar coating it" with what I feel is closer to your intended communication. "I'm not sugar coating it" is directed towards the reader and might be interpreted as antagonistic, whereas "it feels more natural to me" is directed towards yourself and can't be misconstrued.

I also compacted the phrase, "but then again, I have been vocal that I just write what I think" to "I prefer to write in a stream-of-consciousness style". The original phrase turns the reader around a bit, it takes a moment to derive intent.

The second phrase reads in a balanced way, `subject -> predicate -> verb -> preposition -> adjective -> noun`. One main clause and a complement, compared to three entire separate clauses in the original phrase. The second phrase flows down well hierarchically, and is easy to follow, while the original phrase turns the reader around and causes real, measurable fatigue when interpreting your communication.

Does this help?

Thanks, this helps. I hope you understand tho that it can be hard for me to shift my linguistics in a day but I will definitely try to take this into account if I ever write professionally.

I like writing in HN because its fun & spontaneous. Some people write really crafted messages and I love reading those too :D but I am not sure if I might enjoy the site without such spontaneity, but I also liked reading how you trimmed my message and thinking process behind it. So no guarantees but I have favourited this comment for reading it whenever I want :D

I feel this comment can/will definitely help me in professional writing contexts, something which I struggle with. [In concising what I want to say]

This suggestion is helpful. Do you have any normal blogs I can read about this or something to read/learn more in my free-time?

Also, I definitely appreciate you taking time out of your day to write this message so have a nice day!

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