Thanks. I understand your point and was not disputing it—only the tone, which violated the HN guidelines. Upvotes are not a reliable index to this. A lot of uncivil comments get heavily upvoted, unfortunately.
In some contexts, rough-and-tumble language is just fine and makes things more vigorous. Empirically, HN isn't one of those. Its system is too fragile. So if we want any high-quality discourse, we have to protect it. It's not a moral or ethical injunction so much as a practical tradeoff.
In some contexts, rough-and-tumble language is just fine and makes things more vigorous. Empirically, HN isn't one of those. Its system is too fragile. So if we want any high-quality discourse, we have to protect it. It's not a moral or ethical injunction so much as a practical tradeoff.