Scoot shared his recommendation to all readers and used laumars' situation description only as an example.
If you think that his recommendation is technically incorrect - please share why. But trying to suppress that discussion just because you think it is a private parenting issue -- is incorrect in a public forum.
I agree that "respectfully" was not an excuse. But excuse is not needed when commenter is sharing his suggestion.
"respectfully" wasn't meant as an excuse, but to mean just that - a suggestion offered with respect that the OP is free to do whatever they damn well please.
I completely accept that I could have worded it more softly / indirectly / anecdotally. Tone on the internet is hard!
No, he specifically addressed Laumars and gave him unsolicited advice. There are other variations of that comment possible that would have covered your response here but that wasn't the case.
Specifically: "I respectfully suggest you put a stop to that"
1) When I participate in public forum - I imply that I am looking for all unsolicited advices I can get.
Getting unsolicited advice is my main goal in discussion.
Receiving unsolicited advice is one of the best ways to learn about mistakes in my mental model of the world.
When you try to suppress such advice-giving culture on HN -- it reduces my chances of receiving my share of advices and reduces the quality of my communication on HN.
2) Even if advice is formally addressed to somebody else -- I frequently can learn from it anyway.
The author of the advice is well aware that his advice has multiple recipients -- even if the author formally addressed only a single story-teller [to make his advice easy to understand for all readers].
If you think that his recommendation is technically incorrect - please share why. But trying to suppress that discussion just because you think it is a private parenting issue -- is incorrect in a public forum.
I agree that "respectfully" was not an excuse. But excuse is not needed when commenter is sharing his suggestion.