The guidelines are there to remind you where the site's incentives and culture don't. IME all upvote oriented sites turn into forums for "winning debate club" rather than enlightening discussion. The big difference between the sites is who the judges (upvoting user base) are. The guidelines and moderation here retard the trend but a trend it is nonetheless.
Being unkind actually means you're approaching a discussion with the intent of hurting another person, it's not a property of being factually correct or incorrect. Lots of assholes out there are "technically correct", and there are lots of people out there who are wrong, but still decent human beings.
However, you often can't retroactively determine someone's intent over the Internet. Therefore, you have to start somewhere. If you're a cynic, I guess you assume everyone is out to offend or hurt others. But as an optimist, I tend to assume good faith unless proven otherwise.
There are hundreds of ways to say something right, but you can phrase it meanly or kindly without changing how right you are. The definition of orthogonal is that one axis doesn’t influence the other.
I’d say it’s mostly orthogonal. It’s easier to be mean and right than kind, which is probably why there are so many more comments that are. A very rare some of the time, being right also requires a dose of meanness, which is a lot less fun for everyone involved.
> The definition of orthogonal is that one axis doesn’t influence the other.
Ok that’s interesting, a new definition on me. I see orthogonal as attributes at right angles, a measure of perpendicularity. I don’t see it as an indicator of attribute independence.
So if kind and right are orthogonal, this means you can (mostly) be one or the other but not (usually) both.
But a quick google shows your usage is common/normal. Hmm, lovely English. TIL something. Thanks for explaining.
Imagine X and Y axes, perpendicular as usual. If you become 3 units more X, that doesn't change how Y you are. Contrariwise, if we nudge our axes out of orthogonality, now moving along the X axes changes where I am on the Y. Obviously the use here is metaphorical, but that's the sense meant.
Edited to add: consider "independence" and orthogonality in vector spaces, if you want to get mathematically precise about it.