italics

For one italics are used so much to the point of being annoying after the first 3(!) paragraphs.

Hint: changing the font to Arial improves readability a lot and actually displays italics where the author used them.

It took me a while to realise, but HN renders text in between stars as italics.

I really like it, but I wish type designers gave more love to the italics variations, they almost always come out as obliqué or slanted instead of a true italics.

It supports just italics with asterisks, blank lines for paragraphs, code blocks by indenting with two spaces (while markdown uses 4), and auto-linking URLs.

As I was reading the post, I couldn't wait for him to swear again so the italics would be turned off.

Something in between two asterisks on HN gets shown in italics.

There also looks to be an excessive use of emphasis (italics).

Yes it is informal, but the overuse of italics makes it come across as mocking, which is what I was referring to.

When something is written in italics, the reader puts more emphasis on the pronunciation of the word, lengthening the amount of time they read it for.

Also, random bold, underline and italics all over the place.

I like having the ability to include basic formatting in emails, like italics.

Did you infer "hipster" from the italics?

It gives developers the ability to have fine-grained control of their objects, prevent undesired tinkering, and maintaining a unified web-compatible API." [italics added] "Undesired tinkering" is the very essence of what made the web the web.

I agree the italics are annoying; there really isn't any need to stress particular words, people can read and if you write well it will be pretty obvious which words are supposed to be emphasised ("really" really doesn't).

Italics mine: > 13.2 What are the eligibility requirements for PayPal Buyer Protection?