One way to avoid this kind of misunderstanding - after you draft such a comment, imagine you were berated by a moderator (or another user, like here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40997406) then write the clarifying response (i.e. the "All I'm saying [...]" in this case). Throw away that first version and post the hypothetical response instead.
Is dang a moderator? Was there some way for me to know that?
In any case, if their comment was intended to "berate" me, I didn't take it that way. I believe the fear of my comment being intended as mere snark, though politely expressed, was misplaced, and have tried to lay out why.
The joke was meant to help to portray my point strongly, but there was no snarkiness - there's no indirect suggestion, or sarcasm.
A touch of hyperbole, yes, but it was intended to highlight the ahistorical and hyperbolic nature of the original claim in the article. Calling Jobs' comments in 1983 "breathtaking" and "prophetic" is, from my reading of the figures during that decade and the previous ones, grossly exagerrated.
The joke was meant to help to portray my point strongly, but there was no snarkiness - there's no indirect suggestion, or sarcasm.
You can't talk to people on HN like that, it's fairly straightforwardly explained in the guidelines dang linked you. Parsing out whether it's truly 'snark' or not is not that important. Another way to look at it is that things that work fine in some settings - like people more familiar with each other in a group chat or more broadcasty setups like twitter - aren't suitable for HN.
Ok, well thank you for taking the time to clarify all this. I didn't intend to cause any issues. I sincerely thought my comments fall within the guidelines, and have re-read them since, and think perhaps I was misunderstanding what is really being suggested by the guidelines.
I don't think it's straightforwardly explained, but as a non-American, perhaps I was missing or underestimating some cultural assumptions and insinuations.
Could I have my account deleted then? I'm not interested in engaging in the manner which I now understand the guidelines to be suggesting, and would therefore much prefer to not have the account.
The parenthetical remark about the other user "berate"-ing me I find really a bit at odds with reality - it remains to be seen what that user intended, the whole comment was quite neutrally put I thought. I've responded at length attempting to answer their question(s), and am looking forward to seeing if a fruitful discussion develops.
I certainly don't see any scolding or criticism in their comment, and think it's quite possible that it's a misunderstanding.
