It's great to add relevant information, but in the future, could you please do it in a way that greets and expands on what you're replying to, rather than one-upping or putting it down? The two styles of responding have opposite effects on discussion: one opens it up for further exploration, while the second constricts it or closes it. In improv, that is called "blocking": https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/blocking. You probably didn't mean it that way, but intent doesn't communicate itself. Since a comment's impact on future discussion is determined by how others hear it, the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate [1].
The value of an HN comment is its impact on current and future discussion, or (to put it in a pseudo-technical way) the expected value of the subthread it forms the root of [2]. I've been struggling for a way to explain this that doesn't sound smarmy (like "be nice" or "tone"), since it's not about being nice. It's about what leads to richer improvisation and curious conversation, which is what we're trying to optimize for here [3].
Edit: elsewhere in this thread are some great examples of opening-up responses:
If you ask yourself and sense into what kinds of responses such comments invite, you'll get the spirit of what we're going for. I don't mean you personally—I mean all of us. This is a community project.
Please see my response to other comment and stop chasing me. Jesus Dang, it feels like you have something personal with me lately. If you want a date, just ask for it instead.
It isn't personal. I don't remember your username. There are too many to remember them all; it looks like I've posted hundreds of comments since the last time I replied to you.
The value of an HN comment is its impact on current and future discussion, or (to put it in a pseudo-technical way) the expected value of the subthread it forms the root of [2]. I've been struggling for a way to explain this that doesn't sound smarmy (like "be nice" or "tone"), since it's not about being nice. It's about what leads to richer improvisation and curious conversation, which is what we're trying to optimize for here [3].
Edit: elsewhere in this thread are some great examples of opening-up responses:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22798780 ("even more interesting...")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22798746 ("I once...")
If you ask yourself and sense into what kinds of responses such comments invite, you'll get the spirit of what we're going for. I don't mean you personally—I mean all of us. This is a community project.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...