I'm confused - people usually love it when I give them unsolicited and lengthy reviews of their work, framed in a way they didn't intend it to be, but that lets me roleplay as someone who has authority on the matter and is talking down to them?
what part of @saagarjha's comment are you referring to here? TFA is clearly meant to be a riff on Aphyr's posts (they're linked on the first line) so i'm guessing you mean something else?
> give them unsolicited reviews of their work
i mean, a significant portion of HN comments are "i liked/didn't like the article because XYZ", none of which are "solicited" in any way. what's different about this one?
as a writer i'd probably prefer sth like @saagarjha's comment to e.g. "i was hoping it'd be more like Aphyr's stuff, didn't really hit the mark for me"
I think the author made it very clear what they were aiming for, so I fail to see the issue in providing multiple, actionable pieces of feedback that I had when reading it on how they could meet their goal better and consider for next time. Unless your specific complaint is that I didn't include anything specifically positive, to which I can only point to the many other comments that said they enjoyed Aphyr's style and were glad that there was more work being done to emulate it which I didn't care to rehash in my response.
Personally, if someone consumed something I worked on, actively felt that there was something they felt could be improved, and didn't mention it to me, I would have felt as if they had done me a great disservice. I don't have to agree or even take their input into account, but I would very much like it to exist.
> Personally, if someone consumed something I worked on, actively felt that there was something they felt could be improved, and didn't mention it to me, I would have felt as if they had done me a great disservice. I don't have to agree or even take their input into account, but I would very much like it to exist.
And that's a perfectly fine personal preference - but it's not the default.
My issue with your comment is not that you didn't include anything positive. It's that you're directly addressing the author, giving them feedback they never asked for! Just like you didn't ask for my parody of your comment.
HN is not an open issue tracker for "every blog ever". Comments like the top of this thread keep happening, and are part of the reason some people disable comments, or end up blocking some referrers altogether.
Asking if someone is open to feedback on something before offering criticism is really not that hard, and does wonders for everyone's mental health.
Do you think this is helping your argument, or merely making you look bad? Because to me, it just looks like you're off the mark and digging a deeper hole.
