That it is not being debated is the reason it's a strawman. The parent is suggesting that the list of fallacies is a response to an argument that nobody is making. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, but that seems to be what he meant.
If I came up to you and said, "You know, it's a fallacy for you to have assumed that your car wouldn't require any maintenance," you'd probably respond with something like, "Uh, yeah."
That it is not being debated is the reason it's a strawman.
That's not how I've understood the use of the term "strawman," FWIW. I've always felt that a strawman can only exist inside the context of an argument... that is, that a strawman is a technique used in rhetoric/debate, where you setup a false argument for your opponent and then tear it down. That seems to jibe with what Wikipedia says:
"A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position."
In this case, there was no debate, no opponent, etc., ergo, no strawman.
Maybe there's another usage of the term, that I'm not acquainted with?
2. Person B disregards certain key points of X and [...]
3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
Person A doesn't need to be present or even know that his position is being spun for Person B to establish and attack a strawman. The strawman is presented to force a debate over something that Person A never asserted. That is, the debate comes after and is a result of the strawman. There may have existed a debate previously, but it is not a requirement for one that is provoked by the introduction of a strawman.
You might have heard someone respond to a strawman with, "Do you still beat your wife?," which is an obvious example of the tactic that is thrown in the face of the offender as a way of demonstrating its unfairness and ridiculousness.
And imagine the possible responses to the question and why it might leave someone helplessly searching for a response that doesn't damn him:
1. Deny having ever beaten his wife, thus lending credence to the implication by acknowledging it.
2. Ignore the question, thus lending credence to the implication by not denying it.
So the submission could be seen as an implication that people who don't succumb to these fallacies actually do, leaving them with the choice of ignoring the assertion or leaving a comment to deny ever having been naive about any of those points.
I honestly have never heard that there has to exist an argument or a specific opponent for a strawman to be established. Someone please correct me if I am off.
> 2. Person B disregards certain key points of X and [...]
> 3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
> Person A doesn't need to be present or even know that his position is being spun for Person B to establish and attack a strawman.
In the degenerate case, person B only identifies person A by the position he claims that person A holds. It should be obvious that there is no strawman here, since A does not exist unless A holds the position B claims.
It could be argued that, as B gives A more and more distinguishing characteristics, he slides closer to strawman territory. But I don't think the OP was close enough to be in danger.
I think I understand your reasons for sharing this link per our conversation earlier, but to clarify what I meant by "straw man":
I was referring to a lot of discussions here today that take the form of "All those people who thought moving to the cloud was going to magically fix their problems and solve all reliability/availability issues once and for all sure do have egg on their face today."
My point was that I don't myself know a single person or company who is deploying with Amazon or other cloud services who thinks that way. It is this fictional person who is the straw man I was referring to.
If I came up to you and said, "You know, it's a fallacy for you to have assumed that your car wouldn't require any maintenance," you'd probably respond with something like, "Uh, yeah."