The issue is the strength of your emotional reaction, not quality of the advice. We both agree advice is useless, but it looks like we disagree about your reaction.
(The useful content of my comment was mostly presenting the results of trying IE6, generalizing to other IEs, and concluding that it’s probably not the security restrictions specific to your setup that are at fault, but lack of maintenance for the whole browser lineage.)
What would have been the appropriate reaction for me in the blank?
Me: Comments used to be visible on IE7, but not anymore. What changed? You: Don’t use IE7. Me: I wouldn’t be asking if had that option. You: That doesn’t matter, it means there’s a problem even if you had an option, because other people might use IE7! Me: ____
So what’s the story? I describe the parameters of a problem the site is having, and you knowingly post unhelpful comments that aren’t even consistent? Sorry if I’m not optimally prepared for people who are just going to troll bug reports.
Me: Comments used to be visible on IE7, but not anymore. What changed? You: Don’t use IE7.
My answer is unhelpful, and would be even more so if there was nothing else in my comment.
Me: I wouldn’t be asking if had that option. You: That doesn’t matter, it means there’s a problem even if you had an option, because other people might use IE7!
You used words “posting the issue”. I think that you should’ve posted even if you had that option, posted for an entirely different reason, which becomes relevant specifically in the hypothetical where you have that option (being located in the hypothetical, this reason can easily be “inconsistent” with ones relevant in reality, in our case perhaps in the sense of not sharing relevance with them). I agree that this consideration has nothing to do with (1) helpfulness of “use a different browser” (we both agree it’s unhelpful), and (2) strength of emotional reaction to “use a different browser” (we disagree, as I believe it’s useful to not have a strong reaction in such cases, so as not to miss other low-hanging fruit that might be perceptually similar). As such, it’s a completely unrelated point, and shouldn’t be taken as acting on other elements of this conversation. (But it’s a valid point, I think we both agree on that as well.)
The issue is the strength of your emotional reaction, not quality of the advice. We both agree advice is useless, but it looks like we disagree about your reaction.
(The useful content of my comment was mostly presenting the results of trying IE6, generalizing to other IEs, and concluding that it’s probably not the security restrictions specific to your setup that are at fault, but lack of maintenance for the whole browser lineage.)
What would have been the appropriate reaction for me in the blank?
Me: Comments used to be visible on IE7, but not anymore. What changed?
You: Don’t use IE7.
Me: I wouldn’t be asking if had that option.
You: That doesn’t matter, it means there’s a problem even if you had an option, because other people might use IE7!
Me: ____
So what’s the story? I describe the parameters of a problem the site is having, and you knowingly post unhelpful comments that aren’t even consistent? Sorry if I’m not optimally prepared for people who are just going to troll bug reports.
My answer is unhelpful, and would be even more so if there was nothing else in my comment.
You used words “posting the issue”. I think that you should’ve posted even if you had that option, posted for an entirely different reason, which becomes relevant specifically in the hypothetical where you have that option (being located in the hypothetical, this reason can easily be “inconsistent” with ones relevant in reality, in our case perhaps in the sense of not sharing relevance with them). I agree that this consideration has nothing to do with (1) helpfulness of “use a different browser” (we both agree it’s unhelpful), and (2) strength of emotional reaction to “use a different browser” (we disagree, as I believe it’s useful to not have a strong reaction in such cases, so as not to miss other low-hanging fruit that might be perceptually similar). As such, it’s a completely unrelated point, and shouldn’t be taken as acting on other elements of this conversation. (But it’s a valid point, I think we both agree on that as well.)