Words like "human dignity" and "challenging" ae too grandiose to apply to internet attacks, putdowns and so on. If you want to do something for human dignity, there are plenty of other ways, some of which might even have a positive effect, unlike calling names and whatnot. We know what all that leads to, there's no moral value in it (regardless of how righteous the people doing it feel, or how they justify it) and we're trying to avoid that.

If other users are posting bad comments, the thing to do is to downvote them and/or flag them and/or let us know about them at hn@ycombinator.com - as the site guidelines request. Posting flamewar attacks in response only evokes worse from others, draws more attention to the thing you're attacking (which energizes it, which contradicts your intention), and ultimately plunges the ecosystem into internet hell. If you don't want to help HN avoid that outcome, please don't post here.

We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted to HN. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re "superior transgression": everyone always feels like the other person started it and did worse.

I haven't used the word civility in many years except to explain why we don't use that word.