I hope you've cooled down a bit in the last two days. I pointed you
towards a resource that you didn't know about, and I gave you the
benefit of the doubt on your intent, but you still replied as if I had
intentionally stepped on you puppy. I didn't deserve that.
I probably should have recognized your frustration with HN and been more
empathetic in my response. I was also suffering from my own perspective;
when you have a deep fascination with the design and implementation of
discussion forums, finding and researching all of their features is a
lot of fun. I just couldn't imagine someone caring enough to write a
post like yours never seeing or reading or researching the docs/features
already available on HN.
Another part of the problem is HN itself; many people here tend to be
contentious rather than helpful. Many ask tough questions in impolite
ways, but others take the time to make sure there are no barbs present
in the tough questions they ask. Taking a bit of time to look through
the posting history of the person before responding to will give you a
lot of insight, and will often identify those who are just looking for a
pointless brawl. --There is a good reason for the 'delay' field in user
profiles. It makes your posts not show up for "X" minutes to give you
even more of a chance to think and edit rather than responding too
quickly, and often, too harshly. Personally, I actually don't bother
with setting the 'delay' since I learned to take my time long ago.
If you are interested if forum design and the group psychology behind
it, I'd be happy to share with you the resources I've collected over the
past few decades. Some of it, like this whole submission, are tough
reading with a lot more noise than signal. Other parts are far more
succinct and better researched. My email is in my profile if you're
interested.
I probably should have recognized your frustration with HN and been more empathetic in my response. I was also suffering from my own perspective; when you have a deep fascination with the design and implementation of discussion forums, finding and researching all of their features is a lot of fun. I just couldn't imagine someone caring enough to write a post like yours never seeing or reading or researching the docs/features already available on HN.
Another part of the problem is HN itself; many people here tend to be contentious rather than helpful. Many ask tough questions in impolite ways, but others take the time to make sure there are no barbs present in the tough questions they ask. Taking a bit of time to look through the posting history of the person before responding to will give you a lot of insight, and will often identify those who are just looking for a pointless brawl. --There is a good reason for the 'delay' field in user profiles. It makes your posts not show up for "X" minutes to give you even more of a chance to think and edit rather than responding too quickly, and often, too harshly. Personally, I actually don't bother with setting the 'delay' since I learned to take my time long ago.
If you are interested if forum design and the group psychology behind it, I'd be happy to share with you the resources I've collected over the past few decades. Some of it, like this whole submission, are tough reading with a lot more noise than signal. Other parts are far more succinct and better researched. My email is in my profile if you're interested.