dang, just so we are clear, are you saying my use of a technical term of my own field which I prefer, and which I definitely didn't come up with (it's on the Wikipedia page), in a newsletter I did not submit to HN, was a provocation and bait to start a flamewar (to which I was careful not to participate until now, even if there are some pitiful arguments in this thread)?
Certainly not. I phrase comments like that as a way of connecting with the point of view of the commenter, because that makes moderation more persuasive. By no means does it follow that I agree with them. I'm simply acknowledging how they feel [1].
What I'm telling the GP, and HN users generally, is that when something lands with them as a provocation or bait, we need them to pause instead of rushing to HN threads to vent about it, regardless of what the intention of the writer seems to them to be. It's all too easy for readers to get provoked, especially on the internet, even when no one intended to provoke them. Instead of reacting reflexively and making the thread even worse, we need them to handle that reaction and wait until they're able to be a bit more thoughtful [2].
Of course it's also my job to make that case to the commenter without inadvertently provoking anybody else. Obviously I didn't pull that off this time. I can see how my GP comment looked like a claim about your article, and I should have been more careful to disambiguate my own intent [3]. Sorry for fucking that up!
On another note, I wish you wouldn't be "careful not to participate" on topics that you know a lot about! If you participate by sharing some of what you know, there's a chance for people to learn. Of course the arguments here are pitiful—HN is a large internet forum. I don't like it either. But it's all relative, and you (i.e. all of us) shouldn't underestimate the power of adding solid information to a discussion.
[1] I used to tell people "Please don't X, regardless of how right you are"—but that sounds like I'm saying they're right, which I'm not (I say that to everybody). So now I phrase it as regardless of how right you are or feel you are, which seems to preempt that misunderstanding: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
