With all due respect, i'm calmly pointing out another users' inflammatory comments and clear trolling. I wasn't overly polite to him, is the rule literally to take abuse and remain robotic in response? Not being cheeky, genuinely curious.
The rule is to stick to the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) regardless of what someone else does. That's how rules work, no? No one's asking you to remain robotic, but you do need to remain respectful.