Comment by michaelbuckbee
4 days ago
To try and overcome my own personal tendency towards negative criticism on HN, I try and reframe my comments from "why this won't work" to "how can we make this work".
Not a panacea, and I'd be interested to hear others ideas on how to better comment and give feedback.
Maybe try this heuristic: If the content is something you understand well or are passionate about, give merit to its core idea and expand upon it. If the content is something you do not understand well, ask questions that address what you believe is your fundamental gap in understanding the core idea. Not everyone writes perfectly, so be charitable and assume that other parts of the content may not be as thorough.