Unfortunately this seems to be the way the world is working. People who like what you did do not speak up. People wo do not like it complain as loud as possible. Maybe it's because complaining is more likely to lead to responses. Or because when you have a negative feeling about something you feel more urge to speak up.
I know this should not necessarily result in mean complaints, but often it does. So, what can we do against it? Simply ignore mean comments? Take care to write better comments? Or should we just shut up when we have nothing to say?
I think mean comments, such as you get on Hacker News often have a grain of truth to them. That such emotion is attached to that grain of truth suggests that someone likes your idea or cares enough about your product or the area you're focussing on that it's worth pursuing.
Better then to count the meanness as validation of what you're working on and to extract the grain of truth as constructive criticism suggesting how you can improve.
I know this should not necessarily result in mean complaints, but often it does. So, what can we do against it? Simply ignore mean comments? Take care to write better comments? Or should we just shut up when we have nothing to say?