Exactly. I’m not referring to what’s upvoted the most (don’t care). I’m directly referring to the tone of the over all thread, the volume of comments en masse.

Voting one way or the other doesn't change this.

Of course, I’m not surprised that HN is bashing Hotz - any amount of tangible success will bring about negative rhetoric from people who don’t like seeing others succeed. It’s just that HN keeps having its own slashdot iPhone moment on a weekly basis, and it’s awful to see it in a tech community (I hope it’s still a tech community). Really tone deaf and petulant takes by people who should think twice before hitting the reply button.

Right but it's hard to take this as genuine concern for the quality of the forum when you're mostly posting troll things with a troll username. You want to improve the tone, post things that improve the tone.