> I have thick enough skin or I wouldn’t blog. > It’s totally acceptable to me for people to harshly criticize my
> points-of-view. No problem. But calling me a f***ing a**hole or some
> of the other epithets used goes too far.
Though I agree with you that such language is not nice and can be (should be) avoided as much as possible. Some people sometimes have bad days and certain topics can bring the worst in you. As long as it is not regular pattern of certain individuals being very liberal with their Fs and As, I think it is fine. The examples you gave are cherry picked in reference to a discussion about a blog post that you made and was directed at you. It says nothing about the general level of civility at HN, which I think is pretty decent, not perfect, but decent.
Forcing people to use their real name is the worst idea that I can think of.