&gt; I think we&#x27;d all rather be people who digest the message instead of disregarding it because we don&#x27;t like how it was delivered to us.<p>That would be good, yes.  We should all try to be like that.  However, HN has guidelines as well, and I&#x27;m pretty sure that textfile&#x27;s post violated some of them.  And the way HN maintains it&#x27;s status as the kind of place where we care about the message is partly by discouraging statements that needlessly distract with an offensive tone.