Definitely true. The author could have chosen differently and it would have probably led to more constructive comments.

However, I'll also point out that focusing on the snark and ignoring the rest of the article is also a choice made on the part of the commenters.

Given a choice, I personally prefer to take the strongest and most charitable interpretation of someones ideas before choosing to criticize them. At least the discussion is interesting that way...

That things I write for the web usually go through a "lazy comment" filter where I pull out references that would lead to lazy comments. Things that often get stripped are one reference to a specific example when I'm talking about something general–because invariably the comments will focus on "how I don't get the software" or "how I singled it out" or "how what I wrote isn't even true if you look at this way so my point is now invalid". Either I mention no examples, and have the commenters come up with their own, or I have a few so that I don't get attacked by a specific group of people.

While I agree with you, I also think that snark is what makes the blog personal to the author. If it's not a personal reflection of one's thoughts, some may not consider it worth doing.

Perhaps the people who treat CoreOS being called bullshit as dispositive of the entire thesis, and an inclusion worthy of disregarding the author and thinking of him in any way other than making an argument, aren't the intended audience.

Pull the snark out and there will remain any element of this post that kicks off a violent HN centithread that conveniently avoids the core issue. You know it, I know it.

Snark directly related to the main point is fine. The CoreOS comment is unrelated.

In fact the author liked etcd in the time period when it was directly associated with the "bullshit" project. And even mentions "but that doesn't really matter".

Bashing K8S is at least related to the main point.

Well, those that read the article, perhaps. Which would be...nobody?

> Pulling the snark would have resulted in more people getting the main point.

Or resulted in very few people reading it at all.