And yes I am a moderator and it's my role to prevent flamewars and to encourage everyone to raise the standard of discourse here. In my comment I was trying to convey that multiple comments of yours were crossing too far into political battle and personal attack, and here are the main instances:

> That is just objectively incorrect, and fundamentally misunderstanding the basics of statehood

This counts as a personal swipe, and as fulminating.

> It is however entirely reasonable to assume that the comment I replied to was made entirely in bad faith

People can be mistaken or wrong, or just of a different opinion/assessment, without acting “entirely in bad faith”.

> "Baselessly" - I'm sorry but realpolitik is plenty of basis. China is a geopolitical adversary of both the EU and the US. And China will be the first to admit this, btw.

This is phrased in a snarky way.

The points you've made are fine to make, but the way you make them matters. Snarkiness, swipes, put-downs, accusations of bad faith (giving your reason "why" you think it was in bad faith doesn't make it OK) are all clearly against the guidelines.

I can accept that you didn't mean to break the guidelines, which is why I've politely asked you to familiarise yourself with them and try harder to follow them in future. It's a request not a scolding. It's not necessary to announce you want to quit HN in protest. (Though of course, eventually we would rather people leave if they prefer not to follow the guidelines.) Just making an effort to respect the guidelines and the HN community would be great.

I have not made a single personal swipe in this entire comment tree. I have stated (implied) that certain views are not consistent with a cursory introduction to the topic at hand.

I absolutely assumed a basic familiarity with the concept of a state from a comment on the relationship between states. That is good faith and basic respect for the human you are conversing with as I view it.

Overall, I have kept a tone I would prefer be kept towards myself; fake politeness is just condescending.

That being said: Your site, your rules, and your power to arbitrarily interpret and enforce said rules. I.e., message received, regardless of my thoughts on your interpretation of events.

We don't want you to be fake. We just want you to make the effort to share your perspective in a way that is kind and is conducive to curious conversation, which is HN's primary objective. We know it can be hard to get this right when commenting on the internet. It's common for people to underestimate how hostile their words can come across to others, when they seem just like reasonable, matter-of-fact statements when formulated in one's own mind.

> That being said: Your site, your rules, and your power to arbitrarily interpret and enforce said rules

That's not really it. The community holds the power here; when we try to override broad community sentiment and expectations, the community pushes back forcefully.

Your comments got my attention because they were attracting flags and downvotes from the community, and from looking at these comments and earlier ones in your feed, my assessment is "yes, I can see why". (We don't let community sentiment, or "mob rule" win out all the time; we often override flags if we think they're unfair, but in your case, given the pattern we observe over time, we think the community's response is reasonable.)