Snark and sarcasm are often downvoted.

Though sometimes downvotes are used to express disagreement, downvotes should be considered editorial feedback - either you didn't make your point clearly, or your comment is considered likely to derail the discussion.

Use the "edit" and "delete" links, respectively if you are concerned about the karma score of a particular comment.

It is bad form on HN to complain about down votes.

Well, as you probably know, going meta is also often downvoted.

As for your assessment, the two features upon which your sarcasm was centered were obviously among the most trivial mentioned. Therefore, there was little invitation to respond to your argument based upon its merits.

Sometimes of course, one just makes a snarky comment and lets the karma fall where it may. Maybe if you had a few hundred karma points, it would be an option.

As for the flagging, on most of the internet it has long been socially acceptable to praise Apple and disparage Microsoft in public forums - Apple of course encouraged this sort of thing with their long running "I am a Mac/PC" advertising campaign.

This social norm is actually one of the issues which got me interested in Apple and their advertising and the way in which people who like their products feel free to act in public - seriously, every time the Macbooks get a new case or port or processor upgrade, there's been a front page story here on HN.

Google of course doesn't have that luxury of a huge consumer following - people use them by default e.g. as their standard search engine or as the free touchscreen smartphone. And they are smart enough to know what that may mean over the long term - particularly when handset manufacturers now have agreements in place with Microsoft in all probability due to their rush to ship Android.

Is there a concerted effort to flag Microsoft stories? The killing of stories from WinSuperSite is consistent with it. The killing of the "Gmail Man" story is consistent with it as well - particularly given the quality of the discussion which was taking place.

> given the quality of the discussion which was taking place.

I think you got it. I imagine many people flag topics when the discussions in them reach a certain low.

As for the features I mentioned, they are, certainly, the most trivial. But it's also surprising (baffling, actually) Microsoft allowed WP7 to reach the market without them and I'd be ashamed to list such basic features as improvements. It's like saying "now makes calls". And a more constructive approach would be to point out those are the least relevant features and that the others are much more interesting (and why).

I replaced my Symbian Phone with a WP7 phone.

When I got the Nokia, I went out and bought an 8GB card for it. It peaked at about 1GB of usage - I could have stored all that on the phone's memory instead.

My WP7 phone has about 10GB free (more than half). It's not an issue. My wife has an 8GB iPhone, memory is not an issue (are you baffled that iPhones don't have removable storage?)

Data plan usage has never been an issue for the people I am around - even though I imagine it is for some people. And if I cared, the data usage available from my carrier via my phone.

The way I see it, those are listed just so that there is something that everyone can get their head around when comparing specs.

You SERIOUSLY need to remove the tinfoil hat. You and the guy you're conversing with are cracking me up.

I'm not the one implying there is a conpiracy to censor articles that paint Microsoft in a good light. I don't think I ever flagged one.

I'm excited to see where Windows 8 and WP8 goes. I think the integration possibilities (especially if Microsoft ever decides to leverage Live properly) is potentially huge. That having been said, yes, these sorts of announcement posts are tiring. SD cards and NFC? Boring, catch-up.

I want to respect Microsoft, I really do. But when they launch updates that are still playing catchup to Android and iOS and simultaneous attack Android as an inferior product, I have to shake my head. When they attack Google's privacy policy consolidation when they offer no transparency about user data, offer no removal tools or liberation tools as Google does, I shake my head. When they hype IE9 and dog on Chrome for lacking features that Chrome has, in reality, had for years, I shake my head.

Build something awesome and I'll happily come back. Live.com gives Microsoft an opportunity to KILL iCloud and beat Goog/Android to the punch with a really good platform for syncing between devices and making your data ubiquitous across all form factors. But instead they're attacking people on Twitter and trying to convince me that their products are something they're not.