Lol, HN literally came out with the "avoid excessive negativity" rule later that day, but I admit HN is an often-bad habit I keep getting sucked into.
And as far as Grasswire goes, we're doing 500k uniques per month at this point, so even getting on the front page of HN wouldn't really move the needle for us. I mention it occasionally when I think it's relevant, but that's a tiny minority of my HN use.
Fair enough, but I'm pretty sure you missed the implication that I intended, as in you're perfectly fine with coming to HN as a source to assist with coming up with material for your readership. It sure felt like fishing for help the way you phrased the OP. While this response may be construed as negative, I'd prefer the categorization as "functionally cynical" because there is a difference.
Oh, I see. No, generally I try to share what the people in our newsroom have learned instead of the other way around. My parent comment was genuine frustration. BTW, I don't see your comments as out of line or overly-negative at all.
All good, yeah I can see how something really hot like this story would be great fodder both for your outlet, and the desire to get it right / accurate would be well served by consulting the HN massive. Keep on keepin' on sir.
[1]http://austenallred.com/im-done-with-hacker-news/