Comments like this are particularly bad because often, as in this case, people post corrective upvotes and then the now-inaccurate complaint lingers on like uncollected garbage.
You're right, of course, that a legit comment from a new user shouldn't be downvoted, but it's enough to make a corrective upvote yourself and move on; or, in egregious cases, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can fix it.
The funny thing about meta comments is that they can change the status quo that they're commenting on (that is, in fact, part of their purpose), and once they've made the change they seem pointless to those who come later.
At the time of commenting this comment was totally grayed out at the bottom. That's a pretty dour welcome for a new user to a community that's ostensibly interested in anything that gratifies curiosity.
I've vouched several green user comments in the past six hours that had been flagged and gone to dead for no apparent reason, the GP comment you spoke for was one that others had kicked to dead ( usually I'm flagging obvious spam comments straight to dead ).
The funny thing about meta comments is that they can change
Almost always for the worse - for instance now you have this pointless tangent hanging off a topcomment. That's why the site guidelines ask you not to do this.
