[dang]

> how does one discuss negative things without negativity?

Of course there's no rule against negativity on HN. That would be stupid. There's a rule against gratuitous negativity, which is different. That isn't because of any particular thread (we pondered it for a year before we introduced it) or criticism of "high-ranking members". We don't care about that. We care about the quality of discussion on Hacker News. Trying to keep the bottom from falling out on a public forum is harder than it perhaps sounds.

We need some way of making a distinction between negative statements that are civil and substantive, and negative statements that add toxicity to the community. If you can think of a better way to make that distinction, I'd love to hear about it. In the meantime, I doubt that anyone making a good-faith effort to follow this rule is likely to run into trouble on HN.