1. My post is not unsubstantive because I am providing my #1 reason for why I'm boycotting Facebook. My post isn't anything like "Facebook is retarded" or "Fuck Facebook".
2. The guidelines essentially define uncivil as something you wouldn't say to someone's face. I would tell Zuckerberg to his face that I'm boycotting Facebook products over Internet.org and that he is a very bad man. That you consider my comment to be a personal attack - which I also disagree with - clashes with the definition stated in the guidelines.
I disagree emphatically with your claims and consider it a slight personal attack to suggest that I haven't read the guidelines.
That's an inaccurate interpretation of the guidelines, which make no attempt to exhaustively define civility. Exhaustive definitions are the worst thing to try to come up with, because then people will claim that if something isn't listed it must be fine.
Your statement "Zuckerberg is a very bad man" is both unsubstantive (because it's cartoonishly simplistic) and uncivil (because it's an absolute denunciation). It contains no information besides that you don't like Zuckerberg—which is very little information—and squanders it with vehemence.
The rules of civility don't suspend themselves when you're talking to or about someone whom you suspect of being bad. On the contrary, it's precisely for such situations that the rules exist. If you like someone and think they're good, you'll be nice naturally. It's when you dislike someone and think they're bad that you need the discipline to conduct yourself civilly, because like everyone else you owe that to the civic order.
Civility exists to prevent things like people jumping up with a knife at a medieval feast table. On HN the guidelines exist to prevent the internet forum equivalents.
The guidelines don't refer to civility beyond "Be Civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity."
I already said I would say these things to his face, so we're left with "gratuitous negativity". Gratuitous means "without apparent reason, cause, or justification". There's enough tangible evidence in the article and others related to the topic, namely from the creator of the World Wide Web, to suggest that my negativity is with reason, cause, and justification. Perhaps you disagree with that.
This seems like someone telling me to read guidelines for a second time and then chastising me when it's pointed out that the guidelines don't provide enough explicit justification for his or her accusations and statements. Either you're intentionally wasting my time or unintentionally wasting it as a result of presuming ignorance or failure to read. Again, this borders on a veiled, passive-aggressive personal attack, which you seem to be fine with.
If this is about being "cartoonishly simplistic", that's fine. I can censor my comments if that makes HN happy. In return for my willingness to censor myself, I request that HN raise the quality of its guidelines up from what many might consider cartoonishly simplistic to a level that is more robust and explicit. It's not a matter of making them exhaustive. It's a matter of them currently being ridiculously vague and thin. Some evidence for such a claim is in this thread of comments.
Then asking me to read an entire document of guidelines was unnecessary. You simply could've cited "be civil" with a link to the guidelines.
What you've ultimately confirmed is that HN's guidelines are so broad and brief that arbitration is in the eye of the moderator to such an extent to that its directives can be applied to almost any situation.
As such, I'm requesting you read the guidelines and please be civil. Your personal attacks are unacceptable. Thank you.
2. The guidelines essentially define uncivil as something you wouldn't say to someone's face. I would tell Zuckerberg to his face that I'm boycotting Facebook products over Internet.org and that he is a very bad man. That you consider my comment to be a personal attack - which I also disagree with - clashes with the definition stated in the guidelines.
I disagree emphatically with your claims and consider it a slight personal attack to suggest that I haven't read the guidelines.