[gjm11]

If you prefer "accusation" to "attack", that's fine with me. I take it that the actual meaning in this context is "something it's reasonable to respond to by defending oneself", since velcrovan was claiming it was somehow bad for gwern to do that.

I agree that if you are "facing feedback in an advisory role" then it's likely best to avoid being defensive. But gwern isn't in an advisory role here, and he wasn't facing feedback. Feedback is when someone talks to you and tells you what they think; this was velcrovan making a public statement about bad things gwern has allegedly done in the past and their implications for whether he's likely to do this future thing well.

(For the avoidance of doubt: I have no opinion, or at least none that anyone should care about, as to whether gwern will do well as an adviser or mentor to would-be once-a-day bloggers.)