Well, it is rather annoying to be crabbed at like I was on a witch hunt. I also wrote this comment which was downvoted into the negatives and remains at zero:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971899
The witch-hunt atmosphere in this thread is not my doing. Other people chose to upvote comments that agreed with the one sided smear campaign and downvote anything arguing for a more evenhanded approach.
Please note the final paragraph of that comment was added after it was downvoted into the negatives and initially was prefaced with "I have no idea why this is being downvoted, but... "
So I feel rather aggravated with my entire experience of this discussion. Get downvoted for an evenhanded comment, then later get lectured for a different one that could be framed as agreement with the smear campaign.
Not to self: Maybe I need to just avoid mudslinging discussions on HN lest I get mud slung all over me, no matter what I do. Trying to be a voice of reason in the face of this crap apparently does not do any good at all.