zlacker

A much better course of action would be attempts to improve political discourse, rather than demonize the adjective.

>>Chris2+(OP)
They've tried, hard, for some time now. Look through dang's and sctb's comment history to see how hard they've tried to improve the discourse.

>>DanBC+Q
I think a reform of the guidelines would be more effective. Not every mod-comment is seen.

I also think that specific flags would help, i.e. flag a comment that is against some guideline, with reference to the rule it broke.

>>Chris2+Xa
What guidelines would you suggest?

>>dang+En1
You would be in a better position to notice common fallacies etc, but any "list of logical fallacies" is a good starting point, especially those fallacies that can be used to insult, or insinuate, E.g. Specific guidelines about ad-homs. This would also include advice not to use personal information/ circumstances in an argument, unless you are happy to see them criticised.

One of the worst fallacies, us probably the kind that removed the civility from a discussion, and hence the good faith.

As a side note, the worst kinds of guideline is an ambiguous one, that leaves a lot to interpretation, e.g "act civil" is itself a nice rule, but otherwise useless, better off as a heading above specific clarifications.

HN doesn't need to be Wikipedia wrt comment rules, but a few Wikipedia style rules might be good.