Some of the guidelines say sensible-sounding things. This is one of them.

However, this doesn't help when the community goes out of its way to shit on the spirit of those guidelines, while still abiding to their letter. And that's exactly what I'm predicting for this one: they'll pick only the "HN is for conversation between humans." to follow, argue that since "ackshyually errything is AI lmao" then it's fine because the guideline is impossible to follow, or find some grey area to further normalise AI conversations.

Just like they shit on everything else there.

Some off-topic, on the guidelines as a whole:

• In most situations, like this one, rules are better than guidelines. With rules it's clearer for both non-mod users and moderators what they should do.
• "Please" is fine when interacting directly with users, as there's already some hierarchy pressure from the mod talking with you. But they don't belong here; here they make the guidelines sound like requests. And requests can be declined, unlike policies.
• If you're listing too many items as rules/guidelines, odds are most of them are either related to each other or fluff. That's the case here; good cleanup is imperative.

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

"Be kind" is, most of the time, a bad rule/guideline. Not just because everyone has a different interpretation on what is supposed to be "kindness"; but because it gives sea lions a nice cover.

See, a lot of the sealioning strategy is to annoy the shit out of you, feigning to not understand what you say, while being superficially kind. If you shut up, the sea lion wins, so often disengaging is not an option; if you snap out and go overboard, the sea lion wins too; and if you sealion back, you're legitimating their approach.

So a good strategy against sea lions is to be snarky and slightly impolite, while highlighting what they are doing. That works because it forces the sea lion to either stop sealioning or out themself as such. But... well, that contradicts a blanket "be kind lol". And predictably, HN is a full raft. [inb4 yes I had to websearch the collective for "sea lions". :-) ]

Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. [insert bunch of links]

Because yeah, linking people making the same claim in the past totally rebukes the claim. Ppffffft.

May I be frank? I consider Reddit a shithole infested with braindead trash. But in 2026, HN is already worse than a lot of subreddits. Some submissions are still fun (that's why I'm here!), but the comments section is a cesspool.