Please correct me if I&#x27;m wrong, but the guidelines only seem to state:<p>&gt; Be civil. Don&#x27;t say things you wouldn&#x27;t say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.<p>I guess this is the point where we&#x27;d be arguing about taste, but it seems to me that while textfile&#x27;s comment was clearly negative, it was well constructed and well thought out. Not to mention it was in the _exact_ same tone as the article he&#x27;d written years ago that the conversation was about. In this case we should be very careful not to immediately jump on people being upset or negative. It&#x27;s a powerful tool that, in this case, is being used wisely. I think a bruised sensibility here and there is a worthwhile risk in the name of maintaining a network like HN that accepts dissent and spirited disagreement.<p>As a slight tangent, in reading the guidelines I found that more than an attempt to tone-police, they are an attempt to lower the noise:signal ratio. The reason I feel that this discussion is important is because it&#x27;s the reply, not textfile&#x27;s response, that adds noise to the discussion even if you feel targeted by the authors response.