No problem with people saying "it's useless" as long as they make their point with some arguments (which was the case with some of the other comments).
> No problem with people saying "it's useless" as long as they make their point with some arguments
My opinion differs:
1) IME, comments which begin with hyperbole such as "it's useless" rarely improve beyond that. I generally stop reading there (I don't have time to read everything). My theory, anecodotally confirmed, is that if they are careless with their language (i.e., the lazy use of hyperbole), probably they will be careless with their content.
2) It's rude to whomever wrote the article, and it also creates that environment for interactions between commenters.
3) That kind of rant is like a virus; it spreads through discussions and through the community. I believe this concept is well-established among veteran forum maintainers. From Paul Graham, talking about what he learned from running HN: [1]
It's pretty clear now that the broken windows theory applies to community sites as well. The theory is that minor forms of bad behavior encourage worse ones … I was living in New York when Giuliani introduced the reforms that made the broken windows theory famous, and the transformation was miraculous. And I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and the transformation was equally dramatic.
...
Bad comments are like kudzu: they take over rapidly. … If someone submits a lame article, the other submissions don't all become lame. But if someone posts a stupid comment on a thread, that sets the tone for the region around it.
> if they are careless with their language (i.e., the lazy use of hyperbole), probably they will be careless with their content.
Don't forget that many people don't speak English as their first language and it may be difficult to express an adequate degree of nuance (it is for me...).
Overall I agree with you, and I prefer when commenters are respectful of everybody's else feelings. But I don't think it's that bad on hacker news: the ranking system is quite efficient and I often learn something from the comments.
