I'm not asking you to censor your speech. Your use of the word seemed to be at odds with the part of your comment that claimed that it was not a strong critique.

The problem with synonyms is that synonyms are not perfectly equivalent, so you can use them to support a lot of false equivalencies. On the other hand, it's difficult to capture subtle connotations of words in a discussion, and synonyms are kind of the best tool available for getting across that shorthand. It's still a rather inadequate tool. I would say that "disingenuous" being a synonym of "misleading" is itself misleading, because the word "misleading" is neutral to intent where disingenuous is not.

Regarding the word "critique" (especially that form of the word, as opposed to "criticism"), I would say that there's a broadly used academic usage of that word that contains no negative connotation.

Honestly, I have no problem with the word disingenuous. If you were saying that the site developer was intentionally misleading people, then I agree with your usage of the word. But the way that I read your entire comment led me to a different interpretation, and thus my comment.

I'm not asking you to censor your speech. Your use of the word seemed to be at odds with the part of your comment that claimed that it was not a strong critique.

The problem with synonyms is that synonyms are not perfectly equivalent, so you can use them to support a lot of false equivalencies. On the other hand, it's difficult to capture subtle connotations of words in a discussion, and synonyms are kind of the best tool available for getting across that shorthand. It's still a rather inadequate tool. I would say that "disingenuous" being a synonym of "misleading" is itself misleading, because the word "misleading" is neutral to intent where disingenuous is not.

Regarding the word "critique" (especially that form of the word, as opposed to "criticism"), I would say that there's a broadly used academic usage of that word that contains no negative connotation.

Honestly, I have no problem with the word disingenuous. If you were saying that the site developer was intentionally misleading people, then I agree with your usage of the word. But the way that I read your entire comment led me to a different interpretation, and thus my comment.

P.S.

I've noticed that a lot of people on HN use disingenuous in this way that is more or less a direct synonym of "misleading", but outside of HN, I encounter the word much less frequently, and generally it is used in an accusatory tone. Of course language can mutate within communities and subcultures, and that's fine, but using the word disingenuous without implying negative intent carries the risk of offending someone accidentally. I liken the difference between the two words to that of the words "lie" and "misspeak". If you meant to tell someone that they misspoke, but used the word "lied" instead, they would tend to get offended and/or defensive, even though you clearly were not trying to hurl an accusation of ill intent at them. There would be some uncomfortableness created by the miscommunication that was completely unintended and unnecessary. That's the reason that I spoke up about it. I see the potential for unnecessary miscommunication.