Funnily enough, the author does not take their own advice. They say you should motivate with background first, but in that article, they put the motivating background at the very end, after their suggestion is provided without any motivation.

However, given that the whole article pretty much fits on a single screen, that can be mostly excused.

wait, I was confused, but I think I’ve figured it out: what OP's calling a "complaint" I know as a "way of phrasing titles"

Reposted because it did not take off last time it was posted. Since the author recently passed and I thought it would be nice to give it a second chance. While it's still available.

I like the sleeping kitty thing.

There’s nothing wrong with the post. I basically agree, but I don’t see it as front page HN stuff.

The sleeping kitty is from, or perhaps descended from, https://webneko.net/

To the decorative text behind the kitty, I would add that it's almost always helpful to include some form of praise and redirect, for example, "The current approach of doing X has worked well, but aspect Y could be improved by doing Z."

Damn, you’re right! I’d completely forgotten about them!

Good point about style. Makes sense.

Who was the author?

Anyone else tired of others policing how to speak? I think society as a whole is pretty burnt out on this and it leads to some pretty bad second order effects.

In this case it's not about offense or whatever but effective communication. Seems focused on reviewing prs.

So, the blog post says to avoid using labels because they get in the way of making your point. People have preconceived notions about those labels, so anything you say about them is stepping into a minefield.

I agree, but there's so much more involved in convincing people than just avoiding offense. In fact the author sounds like they're saying to patronize your audience. That's possibly even more offensive than attacking their labels!