I've been here for more than a year, so I hope the general public will not mind me voicing a concern. In my opinion, something unwelcome is happening in the last couple of days. I think there even was a pun thread the other day...with upvotes.

Being a lurker by nature, I don't possess the power of the down arrow or the flag, so let me just say that now is not a good time to let these tools lay idle.

What's the problem with this comment specifically? Instead of saying "HN sux, everyone behave differently", why not just disagree with the comment?

I will argue both sides. For:

"It's a good point; at some point biology has to take over and break your concentration. Did they have bathroom breaks and not mention it? Were they so focused that they couldn't hear their body telling them to let it out? Did they just go in a bottle right there?"

Intersting point, jrockway!

Against:

"I think the point of this story was not to literally describe the exact events that took place over the 10 hours they were working together. They took breaks. They got some lunch and made some coffee. But that part isn't very interesting to talk about, and neither of them remember it because it was so meaningless in the context of what they were doing.

But yes, they used the bathroom. Glad that that's all you could think about."

See how I could argue either side and I didn't have to mention HN at all? If I disagreed, other people would see that and upmod me and realize that the OP's comment didn't have much relevance. If I agreed, other people might think, "hey, this OP guy is insightful".

You can control how comments are moderated and how the conversation flows. But you have to put more effort into it than just saying "HN is dying, OH NOES".

The point is that both of those responses, as well as the original remark, are completely inane and boring. If a person reads this anecdote and the only thing he has to say about it is a commentary on bathroom breaks, then I wish that person would resist the urge to post his thoughts.

More inane or less inane than meta-talk?

If all a person has to say about an article is about how badly HN sucks, then I wish that person would resist the urge to post his thoughts.

As GlaDOS says: "We both know that isn't going to happen."

Well, I downvoted that guy too, for feeding the troll. It went without saying that the original comment was lousy.

Wow, a quick comment generated so many downvotes and spawned a meta mini-thread. Downvotes are perfectly fine as I'm no stranger to them. Would I change my comment style to please the hivemind? No, having different viewpoint however unpopular is important.

As for the bladder comment, yes, that's the first thing came to my mind when I read it. Guy Steele stressed strongly about they didn't take a break during the entire time of the 10 hours. I thought, not even a bathroom break? these guys must have strong bladders, or the story was embellished to make it superhuman interesting.

Note that I have enormous respect for both GS and RMS. Sure I could have said how awesome their hacking session was, but that's just being part of the echo chamber. I rather posted my honest reaction. You can read it as an admiration for their superhuman effort or as a questioning of the absurdity of a folklore.