Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

In the GP comment, I was reacting to this:

> your intellectual dishonesty

On the internet, combining a second-person pronoun with a pejorative is going to come across as a personal attack.

Even this:

> what you have written is intellectually dishonest

is likely to land as a personal attack.

Moreover, (1) you can't know whether someone is being dishonest because you can't know their internal state. Nobody says to themselves "i'm being dishonest right now", so a comment like this is almost always going to get flamewar-style pushback, which is what we're trying to avoid here. Also,

(2) you don't need this! You can make your substantive points entirely without calling names, getting personal, etc. If you'd please do that in the future, we'd be grateful.

Does this help?



Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: