I'm not sure if you're trying to say that calling an argument childish is itself childish, or something else, but if you're asking what "I" was thinking, it's "it's time for people to stop leaving dumb comments about the color schemes and decorations of blog posts on threads ostensibly dedicated to discussing the contents of blog posts".
"it's time for people to stop leaving dumb comments about the color schemes and decorations of blog posts on threads"
Design is personally my biggest weakness and any feedback on my site designs is welcomed. Yes this feedback given here is poorly worded, but its user feedback none the less.
It's also time for us to stop nerding our way out of common sense. The comment to which you're referring reads, "Aside: Did someone vomit out that design?". That's not "feedback".
For the third time I find myself pointing out to a site newcomer that there are guidelines linked to the bottom of every page, and the comment we're discussing violates the very first of them.
I absolutely understand --- being myself a nerd --- the pleasure commenters here take in contrariness. I can also understand that smug corrective comments might rankle and prompt objections. But I don't care. If you want to form the opinion that I'm smug and self-regarding for calling people on comments like this, that's fine, as long as the bullshit mean comments stop.
(My take) There's a subtle difference between constructive criticism and nonconstructive criticism. Constructive criticism involves advice that builds off the idea that the thing being criticized is fixable, whereas nonconstructive criticism assumes that it's not fixable and contains traces of strong, sometimes insulting, disgust of or not liking the idea without advice.
If the purpose of criticism is to prevent the person from making the same mistakes twice, then it is constructive criticism, even if the advice is 'I didn't enjoy the way you sang that song.' and doesn't suggest how to fix it or suggests the idea is not fixable. This type of criticism implies that criticizer did not like the idea (or in this case, song,) but does not imply that the person is "horrible" nor that anyone who hears the song will dislike it.
"Your singing is horrible.' is nonconstructive criticism; so is "That code is shitty, don't become a programmer"
"Did someone vomit out that design?" is nonconstructive criticism that, although points out a possible problem, doesn't suggest any advice and is too strong to be helpful.
tmcw's comment "Is it just me or is this design kind of awesomely baller?" is constructive (albeit not critical criticism) and also opens a path for discussion of the site's design instead of immediately and quite strongly crying out that the site is fundamentally right or wrong.
