Your advice sounds a bit pretentious to me. Here I was under the mistaken impression that people should be themselves. (Downvoters in three, two, one...)

RokStdy, don't be discouraged. You've done nothing wrong.

> Your advice sounds a bit pretentious to me. Here I was under the mistaken impression that people should be themselves.

No, no they shouldn't. Not if that means "take whatever action they feel like." One should take purposeful actions which serve to help their fellow HN'er and maintain the tremendously useful tool that this website has become. They should refrain from actions which decrease the signal to noise, or otherwise decrease the utility of HN.

That's not pretentious. That's the just an explicit statement of the implicit communal understanding which made this site what it is.

I hope that one day you can grow enough as a person to realize that authenticity is an important trait. I don't think I've very often heard "no, no you shouldn't" as a direct response to a claim that one should avoid being something you are not.

Authenticity doesn't mean broadcasting every little thought that enters your head.