[dang]

We moderate HN less when YC or YC-funded startups are the topic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That doesn't give you a pass to break HN's rules egregiously and ignore our requests to stop. You've been doing this for a long time, including with accounts before this one, and we've warned you on many occasions. Actually we probably let you get away with it for longer than we normally would.

Looking back at your account history I noticed other cases of you attacking other users, which we didn't see at the time and certainly would have moderated and perhaps banned you for. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23186380.

I appreciate that you've also posted a lot of good comments (but then again, also a lot of snarky ones). If you genuinely want to commit to using HN as intended, we can unban you.

[BubRoss]

There is a difference between attacking someone and being blunt. If you want to ban people and scold them for being blunt then you might as well say that, but to say this is attacking someone is not reasonable. It would be different if there was some sort of uniformity to this, but it seems more like a self righteous crusade to get people to apologize to you personally for not sugar coating what they say.

[dredmorbius]

I've occasionally bit my tongue really hard in not calling someone an idiot outright.

Semi-recent example (shared previously w/ dang):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22133112

The person I'd replied to ... thanked me.

Your reply reads better without the attacks.

[dang]

I don't need you or anyone to apologize to me personally. The only issue is whether you'll abide by the site guidelines in the future.

Interpretation is part of applying the rules, but I don't think there's so much variance in how we interpret them. Something like that gets pretty regular and tedious after you've done it a hundred thousand times.