I'm glad you spoke up, and maybe I and others should've.
There are some kinds of topics that I can immediately guess will invite certain kinds of comments on HN, and I've learned to just take a deep breath and ignore them. (If it gets really bad, I go catch up on that other Web site that does over-the-top criticism of HN, so that I don't feel like the only one.) On rare occasions, I've tried to engage some of the, but it's just draining.
However, when not enough people speak up, that can send an implicit message that some life-sucking background noise from others is OK with everyone else, when it's not.
There are some kinds of topics that I can immediately guess will invite certain kinds of comments on HN, and I've learned to just take a deep breath and ignore them. (If it gets really bad, I go catch up on that other Web site that does over-the-top criticism of HN, so that I don't feel like the only one.) On rare occasions, I've tried to engage some of the, but it's just draining.
However, when not enough people speak up, that can send an implicit message that some life-sucking background noise from others is OK with everyone else, when it's not.