If you read dang's admonitions (as I have, for many years) you'll find that his viewpoint and official HN policy is that tone matters immensely, and is often read as diminished / positive by authors and amplified / negatively by recipients.

Searching for "personal attacks" and "swipes" will turn up many such examples:

"personal attacks": <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>

"swipes": <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>