Always interesting how blog posts critical of Spolsky always create so much chatter here....or, almost always. If you happen to include Paul Graham as a target in the same blog post as Spolsky (Blogs Are Godless Communist Bullshit), it seems people here aren't as interested in the article for some reason. Funny that.
You seem to be implying that, on news.yc, it's okay to criticize Joel Spolsky, but not Paul Graham. I think it's that you don't have enough controls in your experiment.
I read this longish blog post in its entirety. I don't agree with all of it, but I think the author made some valid points, and that he's making a good-faith effort to be constructive. I also read the longish Giles Bowkett blog post you're talking about. It was very much not constructive, and in fact was all the way across the scale to conspiracy-theory, tinfoil-hat-style nutbar-ism. I'm not surprised it didn't score very well when it was posted here.
Have you noticed how Paul usually reacts to criticism? Say somebody posts a comment here that is vaguely critical of something he wrote. Paul's usual response is along the lines of: "Are there specific things you can point out that I was wrong about?" That doesn't sound to me like a guy who considers himself beyond criticism.
I'm not saying Paul considers himself beyond criticism, I am saying that the community here jumps at the chance to heap criticism on Joel (there are many historical examples of that here)....the only exception I am aware of is the article in which Paul was also mentioned...for that article, hardly a peep.
