A statement becomes a personal attack when it's intended as an attack, not simply because it's hurtful to the recipient. For instance, (addressing the pg example you mentioned elsewhere) it's not generally a personal attack when an old and/or sick person's doctor says they have a few months left at best, though hearing it will probably upset them. It's likely (though absolutely not certain!) that one middle schooler pointing out another's acne intends for it to be hurtful, but I don't think you could reasonably blame a very small child for pointing out the same—though it would certainly be a teachable moment.
Semantics aside, I understand from experience how difficult it is to moderate situations like this, but as a user-privileged participant in any discussion I reserve the right to defend myself (e.g.) when somebody rolls out some half-baked strawman and then accuses me of going off topic. In this case I find it particularly ironic that in a thread full of completely baseless character attacks against Miculas, the author of the linked article (e.g. he just wants credit so he can put it on his resume), I'm the one who gets threatened with a ban for questioning that narrative and not then meekly rolling over for the ensuing tide of bullshit. If you want to see a real, unequivocal, totally one-sided personal attack, you need look no further than the original comment I replied to^[1], and you can't throw a stone from there without hitting another one. I note that those comments remain largely unflagged, which is not a surprise given how acutely vulnerable users of platforms like HN are to the bandwagon effect and similar biases.
My behavior in this regard is not going to change, but my experience in this thread is certainly raising some questions.
If you don't like the phrase "personal attack", I can put it this way instead: please don't post pejoratives using personal language.
In the context of moderating an internet forum, we have to go by effects, not intent: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que..., for a number of reasons: (1) intent isn't observable or predictable; (2) effects are both observable and predictable; and (3) it's effects which ruin threads.
Everyone always feels like they're the one being singled out and treated unfairly—this isn't a reliable feeling, it's a universal bias. If other comments broke the site guidelines as badly as you did, and the mods didn't say anything, that's because we didn't see them, not because we're against you.
Semantics aside, I understand from experience how difficult it is to moderate situations like this, but as a user-privileged participant in any discussion I reserve the right to defend myself (e.g.) when somebody rolls out some half-baked strawman and then accuses me of going off topic. In this case I find it particularly ironic that in a thread full of completely baseless character attacks against Miculas, the author of the linked article (e.g. he just wants credit so he can put it on his resume), I'm the one who gets threatened with a ban for questioning that narrative and not then meekly rolling over for the ensuing tide of bullshit. If you want to see a real, unequivocal, totally one-sided personal attack, you need look no further than the original comment I replied to^[1], and you can't throw a stone from there without hitting another one. I note that those comments remain largely unflagged, which is not a surprise given how acutely vulnerable users of platforms like HN are to the bandwagon effect and similar biases.
My behavior in this regard is not going to change, but my experience in this thread is certainly raising some questions.
^[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37676623