I think the gap is the difference between giving feedback to a person and broadcasting superiority. The former is what we do in-person. It takes constant active effort to not do the latter.
Giving feedback in-person, you want to make sure your feedback land. Encouraging where possible by pointing out what works, discussing the ways it can or needs to improve.
When people don't give feedback to the OP as a person, and rather treat it like a faceless corporate entity, or go full-Slashdot, that does get a bit mean-spirited.
In my view, the fact that you are speaking on the internet does not mean you have license to be harmful or careless with the people you interact with.
I also like that the parent complains about the very thing (being able to speak freely) but doesn't want to apply that to people that disagree with his standpoint.
This is because some people have discovered that it's a great way to emotionally manipulate others into upvoting that comment out of guilt - the structure of this kind of comment is designed to bypass the logical reasoning centers of the brain and cause an emotional reaction. (I saw another comment a few weeks ago that had more detail on this, but I have no hope of finding it without my exobrain) It's also just barely far enough away from the "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." in the guidelines that some people can justify doing it.
I automatically downvote comments of this form whenever I see them. Comments should be written in such a way that encourages curious and thoughtful conversation and not emotional manipulation.
If you look at my account age and number of comment upvotes you'll see that I don't care about comment upvotes at all and have never made any effort to increase them.
My original comment was to highlight that I think the ratio of positive to negative feedback for what is an impressive effort by an individual seems unbalanced. There's lots of negative feedback and very little positive feedback.
I think positive feedback is important - it's good to know what you're doing well in addition to what you're not doing well.
As someone who has designed a product from scratch before I also think it's incredibly easy for people who haven't gone through that process to underestimate the time and effort involved.
You're right. I do find, however, that the "default" reaction to showcases is to point out all the flaws, but not reinforce any of the strengths. To me that seems unbalanced.
I'm sure many HN users are content with this form of feedback - that's fine. I personally think that when receiving feedback, finding out what has been done well is as important as finding out what hasn't.
also, this thread is a gold mine of insight they can use to refine their product for the market. ie take off the stupid orange knob and hide the made in the uk nonsense and stop naming the product like a mars bound space rocket
Dropbox is a very useful thing for most people, and it's not expensive. That's a very different scenario than this keyboard+HN.
The key IMHO is to sort through the comments/critiques and dismiss the overly negative grumpy ones from the people who crap on everything, but hone in on the ones that have a ring of truth to them. Those should be used to drive serious thought about improvements. At least, that's what I would do.
