I'm pretty sure "hurt" and "offended" are synonymous in this context, or at least pretty close. In whichever case, I intended it without judgment, so re-read it accordingly.

> I intended it without judgment

I don't doubt you. But you didn't write it without transforming what they said in the first paragraph into something else in the second. I'm not calling for your head here, just pointing out a flawed linguistic turn that enables people to dismiss complaints about being left out again and again and again as histrionic (like I see nawgz doing in that sibling comment).

I disagree. I don't think there's anything to transform. "Offense" is an apt summary for the complaints. One of the HN guidelines is to read charitably, and in general splitting semantic hairs is rarely interesting IMHO.

What do you mean? People were offended by the content, reacting with tidbits like "they couldn't relate to it" and "they felt that the message was explicitly excluding them" even though the message was to "Go Vote" and only had one single human female hand in it.

To have people react like that, when the message was so far removed from race & gender, shows just how much work has to be done to minimize offense taken by any piece of content.

Strongly disagreed with your claim of "belittling".

Edit: I get downvoted a lot on this site without explanation. Really struggling to understand how this comment is worth downvotes but no responses...