If you're going to nitpick over something, nitpick over the link being to the front page of the blog, not to the blog post.

(Maybe by the time people reading this tomorrow follow the link, Google will have posted something else.)

One error is a nit, but five in one article title? That's just sloppy. Proper punctuation, capitalization, and spelling are de rigueur here at Hacker News, and as one of its more wizened denizens I was doing my part to enforce the local culture. (It was also an implicit message to the editors to fix it---which they did.)

N.B. This is a record number of downmods for me (five as of this writing), and I find it alarming how something so trivial can do so much to distress my fragile primate brain.

I'm sorry, but it isn't "de rigueur" here to play grammar and spelling nazi to headlines. Yes, people who post while abiding by the standard rules of English are generally better regarded here than people who do not.

If you really feel you must point out the failings of someone's grammar or capitalization, then perhaps you should find another avenue to point it out than overplayed vim-isms.

Palish has set a good example if you must: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=436458

Ordinarily, I'm careful about how I give feedback, especially in sensitive situations. This didn't seem like one of those times, so I opted for brevity instead of subtlety.

Given the reaction, it appears that I misjudged. Your comments are particularly notable; you are also one of the more experienced inhabitants of these parts, and I take your feedback seriously. There are aspects of the tone that give me pause (the parent comment strikes me as somewhat supercilious), but the content is much appreciated, and I'll be more circumspect in the future.

Using compact s/// notation to recommend changes isn't 'nazi', it's hacker.

It's the reader's choice to interpret it as brusque rather than just efficient. Choose well!

I think a lot of hair-trigger downvoters have arrived in the past few weeks. (Or maybe old hands have just gotten grumpy.)

I've noticed quality comments being pushed initially down to 0 or -1 simply because they have a strong viewpoint with which some people would disagree.

It's unavoidable that one-dimensional moderation votes will often be used for expressing disagreement. OK. Still, comments should only be pushed below 1 -- faded out as if they were a punishable offense -- if they're bad for the discussion.

And get your nickpick right! It should be "s/gmail/Gmail/" with a trailing slash.

You need the trailing slash when using sed at the command line, but it's optional when doing a replacement in vi(m). You're right, though; the version with the trailing slash is probably the canonical form.

Any chance we can do away with this kind of nit-picking now? I'd hate for it to get out of hand like it is at "that other site".

Besides it's rather pretentious & I only tolerate that from myself.

Sorry. I typed it all out quickly, I kind of in a rush to get back to some coding.

I also called it 'Google Gears' and not it is only called 'Gears'

I am not really one to follow or believe in grammar for a simple link though, but I will say that many errors in a single line might be a bit over the top.

This is a good comment: its suggestions were accepted; it improves the look of the top story on the front page.

But ideally it would disappear from view as soon as it is addressed, and even before being addressed, it shouldn't interfere with other on-topic conversation.

I would like it if articles had a separate 'meta' thread for comments like this. Or, for comments to have an extra 'transient meta' flag that lets them be deleted indefinitely in the future, once they're addressed or otherwise moot.

Only people who choose to view meta -- or those with the power to change the target, like the original author or admins -- would then need to see these comments.