> I don't think I twisted or misrepresented anything, and no one seems to be suggesting the anything was actually misrepresented
No, that is what I'm suggesting. Your comment reads as a quote. After reading it, I went to the linked page and looked around for the context. Turns out, there was no context for that quote, because it's not a quote, because those words aren't actually in the original text.
You're talking about something slightly different than what I asked. You clearly were able to check and conclude that this wasn't a literal quote. There was no difficulty there. You apparently got stuck there, and were unable to proceed from that information to the conclusion that I was restating the position in an extremely similar but more concise form, which would have been a way of interpreting my statement in its most reasonable form.
I'm asking whether, even a person who wasn't making a reasonable interpretation of what I was saying, would have been misled by the way I characterized Comcast's position. Is there a significant difference between the way I phrased Comcast's position on whether or not they were exhorting their customers to purchase a new modem, and the way they actually phrased it? Because I don't think there is.
I'm asking whether, even a person who wasn't making a reasonable interpretation of what I was saying, would have been misled by the way I characterized Comcast's position.
You're spending a lot of time prosecuting this point, and requiring time to be spent by others who care about HN being better than other online communities.
Whether or not some hypothetical person not making a "reasonable interpretation" would have been misled, or whether it's reasonable that a reader had to spend time searching for the quote to verify it to realize that it was not actually a quote (and how many others would have bothered to do that), are matters that we could spend many more hours debating.
Or, you could just accept that it's better to refrain from misquoting people in future and we could all get on with our lives.
All it would have taken you was to preface the "quote" with something like "the response, which effectively amounts to saying...", and it would have saved everyone the bother.
C'mon, is this really a hill you want to die on? Maybe let it go :)
No, that is what I'm suggesting. Your comment reads as a quote. After reading it, I went to the linked page and looked around for the context. Turns out, there was no context for that quote, because it's not a quote, because those words aren't actually in the original text.