Personal attacks can be anonymous, so that's a red herring. And HN's guidelines may not be laws, but neither are they optional—we ban accounts that violate them repeatedly.
It's not hard to see what kind of discourse we're going for here. What's hard is to stick to it when you're feeling that someone is subpar. On the internet, human biases yield a strong tendency to feel that way about others, and we all need to be disciplined about counteracting it. If you can't or won't take up the task, you're not welcome to comment here.
That doesn't mean you have to abide by it perfectly. I can't, and doubt anyone can. It means that when we slip we need to recognize our error and correct it, not defensively dismiss the information.
