Not at all. You've highlighted the problem with your phrase "isn't no negativity". It's a poorly defined slippery slope of a criterion. Where is the line drawn?
Banning personal attacks, but allowing unlimited criticism of ideas, is more of an objective guideline.
Unlimited criticism of ideas is fine as long as it's substantive. Critical comments must contribute something to the discussion. A reader unfamiliar with the topic of the discussion should be expect to learn something from critical comments, more than "a commenter named $foo doesn't like this thing".
Perhaps what abalone is referring to is anything seemingly positive that doesn't add any value to the discussion should also be pointed out. In other words, gratuitous comments in general, positive or negative, should not be supported. For example, we see lots of "XYZ just raised $10mil" on here and the comment section is littered with "Congrats Jim!". Should we not be downvoting those too so we keep the consistency of "I learned something here" comments?
> the comment section is littered with "Congrats Jim!". Should we not be downvoting those too
That is a good example of an edge case. It's already pretty accepted that "Nice article!" comments should be downvoted as noise. "Congrats Jim!" is pretty much noise as well. The difference is that "Nice article!" can be a very, very common occurrence if it's not moderated because it can occur in pretty much any post. Whereas, "Congrats Jim!" is at least celebrating something rare and very much worth congratulating in the specifically entrepreneurial focus of HN. Also, maybe you see "Congrats!" comments more than I do. But, my impression is that they are at least 10x less common than "Nice!" comments that are already widely downvoted.
There's a fine line between moderating noise and being the "HN Fun Police". There's room for fun and occasional silliness in HN. What I'd prefer there not be room for is the permeating noise of snacky/snarky "cleverness" that constantly drowns discussion in Reddit.
You're right, "congrats Jim" is an edge case, but so are the cases of "this sucks" or "commenter $foo doesn't like this" one-liners. That's a complete straw man. That stuff, as you note, already gets downvoted.
Sam is targeting something else. The post is wading into the realm of "gratuitous" negativity (or "unwarranted", to use tptacek's equally slippery qualifier), which is not necessarily just brief, unsupported stuff. It's clear I think that Sam is getting at the disheartening feeling that entrepreneurs can experience when facing a withering critique of a nascent project.
We want a supportive community but a withering critique can actually help ideas get better. This guideline is ill-defined and could be interpreted as "tone it down, folks". And paired with a move towards community moderation, it's all about interpretation.
This guideline would be better redefined around clearer, more concrete criteria.
"Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes.
The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible.
> The costs of negativity and discouragement are difficult to judge because they usually take the form of opportunity costs which aren't directly visible.
That has nothing to do with anything I have said. You have unfairly added an assumption to my comment and asserted I said something I did not. Saying that going too far on one side of an activity is bad does not imply that the other side is better. You have basically said because I don't think running 50 miles a day is healthy that I am advocating sloth.
> "Unwarranted positivity" has also been the root cause of many of our industry's greatest successes.
Our industries greatest successes have come from a place of optimism but been realistic in their thinking. Most programmers have suffered from people, including themselves, giving estimates that were "Unwarranted positivity".
Yes, which I believe has been demonstrated on one of my comments by stating a position that I did not take. I can think of no worse source of the two things you mention than forcing a position on someone who didn't take it.
Banning personal attacks, but allowing unlimited criticism of ideas, is more of an objective guideline.