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Comment by acdha | Hacker News Reader

Since you didn't add anything other than an unwarranted attack on the person you're replying to, this falls under “Avoid gratuitous negativity”:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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I think this subthread is a good example of what can happen if we quote the guidelines without context. It's a counter-intuitive trap I've also fallen into, so I wanted to mention it.

In this case, this subthread could've been nipped by mentioning that it's ok to be abrasive to an extent as long as it's followed by a substantive comment. It's not diplomatic, but it's not against the rules.

The guidelines are the framework the community is built around. They're not sufficient to explain why the community is built around them. (We probably wouldn't want the guidelines to be so complete, either. It's better to explain the motivations on a case-by-case basis.)

It's a valid question but looking at his posting history doesn't convince me that there's a way to word things which would result in a more productive response. Note that I lead with the observation that there wasn't anything to his post other than the attack — I don't think there's too much more to say about that before hitting diminishing returns.

It's a valid question but looking at his posting history doesn't convince me that there's a way to word things which would result in a more productive response.

You could be right. But if you were in their shoes, you'd want to be given the benefit of the doubt.

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