Posting to HN is like exposing yourself to the eye of Mordor
There are a lot of people who don't understand what this place is for.  Hacker News is a cocktail party.  It's a bunch of smart people getting together and shooting the breeze about whatever we see on the front page.  If you understand that, you'll fit in fine.<p>Lots of new users here don't understand that.<p>If you spend any time on the internet, you're quickly trained that discussion forums are places for combat.  The goal is to look as smart as possible while tearing everybody else down.  To have an unrefuted comment is to win, and nobody is going to let you do that so they'll tear your comment apart line by line.  Naturally, that person is a moron and needs to be told so, preferably by turning his own trick against him and tearing <i>his</i> comment apart.  Stop me if this sounds familiar.<p>That explains why the hardened slashdot veteran gets such a strange reception here.  Have you ever been at a party where there was a guy who just didn't belong there?  The belligerent know-it-all butting into conversations?  The drunk guy in a room full of sober people?  The uninvited casual racist?  We've all seen what happens.  People drift away from him wherever he goes, sometimes stranding some poor soul talking to him, but generally trying as best as possible to continue the party as normal and hoping he doesn't disrupt it further.  Nobody wants to confront him and ask him to leave directly, but they all sure hope he'd get the hint on his own.<p>That's where we are here today.  Except it's a big room and there are quite a few uninvited intruders behaving badly.  You'll notice that that guy at the party often doesn't realize that he's out of place.  Look through this very thread and you'll spot a few of him, justifying their belligerent behavior and complaining that the rest of us don't get it because this is The Internet and that's how we're supposed to behave.<p>But we don't behave that way.  That's why it's so good here.