[tomhow]

That comment would be a guidelines breach on HN, whether or not it was in reply to the project creator. It gives off just the kind of negativity that HN has always aimed to avoid. Even if we don't always succeed in avoiding it, the guidelines represent an ideal that we work to uphold every day.

> Just trying to figure out where the line is

It's not really about a line, it's about the qualitative style of discussion we’re here for. HN is for people who like to build things and work on interesting new projects, and have curious conversations about what they're building. Projects that are new and built in different ways than what has come before will always be easy to criticise from a position of conformity to historical conventions, but if we all thought that way, nothing new would ever be built.

> I do think snark is a valid form of criticism sometimes

Not on HN. Thoughtful criticism is fine, and the very first two words of the “In Comments” section of the guidelines are “be kind”.

> but it's your house after all

That's not how we think about it. We’re custodians of this place and our role is to keep it a healthy place for discussion among intellectually curious hackers. It takes daily work and effort to uphold the guidelines and keep the standards up so that it doesn’t become the hellscape of negativity that it's often stereotyped as being.

[plestik]

For me I think this veers dangerously close to tone policing. I don't think you have to always be extremely civil in the face of what you consider moral bankruptcy. But I can also understand that it creates a vicious cycle so I can appreciate your position here.

[tomhow]

Thanks for the discussion and (partially) understanding :)

The use of terms like “moral bankruptcy” is exactly what the guidelines ask us to avoid, indeed explicitly so with the phrase “Assume good faith”.

Part of the challenge of participating on HN is to be able to come into contact with people who see and do things differently (including building software projects in a way that's different from the way we consider proper) and find a way to recognize that they are still acting in good faith and deserving of basic courtesy.