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'Trolling' originally meant to deliberately ruin discussion by provoking others, but it turns out that most discussion-ruining isn't deliberate—it happens as a side-effect of people venting. Since the effects are the same when intended or not, it's reasonable to use the same word.

It's also more practical: we can't observe intent, but we can observe troll effects. And effects are what we care about anyhow. So when someone does things on HN that are known to ruin discussion by provoking others, we call it trolling regardless of how sincere they think they were.

By that standard, your comments have been trolling and you need to stop. I'm sure you can find more substantive ways to express your views if you want to.




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