Not quite. The bicycle shed is a far stronger example than Arrington. Indeed, the pointlessness of trying to persuade someone about the proper color for a bicycle shed is a long accepted fact in the open source community at large.
I think tightening up your argument so the essay flows better is different than modifying your argument to persuade. Essentially Paul removed something that was railroading the discovery process for many people. If there's something in an essay that is so vastly disruptive that people can't talk about the main point, there's nothing hypocritical about removing it.
Would you consider correcting a distracting spelling error an effort to persuade?
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/mailing-list-faq/bike...
I think tightening up your argument so the essay flows better is different than modifying your argument to persuade. Essentially Paul removed something that was railroading the discovery process for many people. If there's something in an essay that is so vastly disruptive that people can't talk about the main point, there's nothing hypocritical about removing it.
Would you consider correcting a distracting spelling error an effort to persuade?