Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Therefore it was showing signs of not scaling. Perhaps, although it seems as though it was less "not scaling" and more "someone exploited our system to spin the CPU" from my reading of the thread. >"flippant" means "not showing a serious or respectful attitude" And I hold to the claim that a 2 word response to an ask HN is absolutely flippant. Please explain to me what is actionable about "Doesn't scale"? That is a…
When a system is not scaling you can increase capacity to mitigate the problem, to buy time while trying to root cause and fix the problem. You can also take the site down and display an error page. At no moment I said "you are doing it wrong". I pointed out "it doesn't scale". A factual statement similar to "it's 11:13 am" or "it's raining".
Because "it doesn't scale" doesn't imply that you need to increase capacity right now. "It doesn't scale" could mean that "this will be problematic when you have 2,000,000 users", or as you used it, it could mean "I can't get to your site right now". Personally I don't consider "it doesn't scale" to mean "I can't use your app right now".
Which comes back to my core point, once again, that your original post, "Doesn't scale", isn't actionable feedback, it didn't clearly convey any immediate problem nor did it provide a clear action to follow. The fact that you've had to clarify your post to multiple other users should be evidence of that.