I read the article in its entirety and afterwards read the comments here yet still downvoted the GP post. The reason is because it adds nothing to the discussion; it's just noise in an attempt to be meta-funny. That kind of comment would be appropriate for Reddit or Slashdot but generally not for HN unless the irony was particularly insightful. For example, one could use irony as a device to point out the flaw in a particular argument. Banal sarcasm yields no such insight. Had there been a "Seriously though..." part with something that contributed to the discussion, I would not have downvoted.
If everyone here made that style of comment would HN be a better place? For example, maybe half the comments here can be variations of "I don't even read Ars Technica", "That was the worst ever article, a new low for Ars demonstrating how it's going downhill fast from its complete failure", "Anybody who reads Ars is probably a Romney lover", "Ars is the worst site ever... I've been reading every article daily for years and it hasn't improved", and so on. In fact, replace Ars with HN and let people make all those comments about every article. This place might gradually devolve into YouTube comments as people learn through example what types of comments the community values.
That's a good point as well. I think his point is that he could trigger people into downvoting or replying to his post regardless of whether those folks fully read or understood his post or the linked material. Several of the comments certainly demonstrate that to be the case.
If everyone here made that style of comment would HN be a better place? For example, maybe half the comments here can be variations of "I don't even read Ars Technica", "That was the worst ever article, a new low for Ars demonstrating how it's going downhill fast from its complete failure", "Anybody who reads Ars is probably a Romney lover", "Ars is the worst site ever... I've been reading every article daily for years and it hasn't improved", and so on. In fact, replace Ars with HN and let people make all those comments about every article. This place might gradually devolve into YouTube comments as people learn through example what types of comments the community values.