I take the point, but one thing we've learned in trying to have a sizeable online forum where the values are 'civil and substantive' is how destructive the little jabs can be. If we're to have the intelligent discussion you speak of, we all need to edit our jabs. It takes discipline, and there's a cost (a certain blandness), but it's necessary. I've had to learn this the hard way, and am far from the only one.

I've often wondered why jabs, swipes and sarcasm are so corrosive on HN when anyone who knows about the history of discourse knows what a lively role they have played. Literary wit, especially, is frequently scathing—both an art and a sport. Not having an answer to that is why it took me so long to learn not to engage that way on HN.

But I think I know the answer now. It's because this community is many orders of magnitude larger than those were, and so the lowest common denominator is both much nearer and much suckier. Keeping that at bay is HN's major task, and the main purpose of the site guidelines. It makes the discourse a little more bland, but the alternative is not lively exchanges of high wit, it's YouTube comments.