What's funny is that, because you're an anonymous nobody, Linus's style would probably be more effective for you. Nobody knows already to assume there's an endless torrent of pointless barking that accompanies all of your commentary. People might actually think you mean it.

I mean, you'd get your comments flagged off HN, but other than that: it could work for you.

Unfortunately, for Torvalds, we're all in on the joke.

The problem is, well, it's just like my bulldog Reinforcements. He doesn't like hats. He sees someone walking down the street wearing a hat, he barks loudly. He barks a lot because of this. When I'm across the house and I hear him bark, I have to try to determine whether something important is happening, or just a hat. It's an impediment to our communication, me and my dog. Same with Torvalds. He sees a lot of hats, is what I'm saying.

It could be worse. My dogs bark at anything and everything with a pulse that walks by. That's the equivalent of someone waiting on all mailing list correspondence/repo traffic for anything and everything to blow up at, and people like that do exist. Fortunately, they rarely make an impact to be important enough to listen to.

Or you just stop hearing the barking, like the annoying dog in my neighbor's yard. I've mostly stopped noticing that the damn thing barks 8 hours a day. But if it yelps instead of barking, I notice immediately.

Most of us will perk up a lot if Torvalds has something nice to say, even among the barking. Communication is complex.

This analogy with your bulldog and the world's hats, it was the very first time in 20 years that made Linus' [negative] swearing problem click in my mind.

Is your dog named as a Homestar Runner reference?

Your dog's name is a plural noun?

What's soft-pedaled dreck there? It's very straightforward, e.g.: "He deploys it so casually you just assume it isn't serious."

You could argue that "continuing to try to affect his Andrew Dice Clay of Programming persona" isn't super clear, but it also doesn't fit "soft-pedaled politically-correct," really.