> Arguably, silencing someone because they diverged from "community norms" is slightly hostile; I have a hard time believing your position that a community is served well by being built atop hostile moderation.

It is slightly hostile. It's also how groups enforce culture and less codified systems of conduct. Not only in the active consequences to the offender, but in the visible consequences to others. I think it works in some cases, and does not in others. in the case of HN, it's ham-fisted, but I doubt more intricate systems that allow people to choose levels of response would actually work at all, given the amount of time people are generally willing to spend on such things (and the variability in the scale and type of response based on initial state).

> It's also a weird incentive to throw down, as you allude to, because "acceptable opinion" and "acceptable comment" are extremely conflated. So now one finds oneself writing comments that contain acceptable opinions, which is the care in crafting that you're describing.

I'm not really sure what you mean by the first portion of that sentence. I do agree one can find themselves writing comments that conform to opinion and not just just an accepted method of argumentation. That's up to you to combat on your own, here, as the rules are now. People will value different aspects of discussion than you, and you have to deal with that in every discussion anyway. When speaking about something you know your audience is sensitive to, you either make some level of effort to present it in a way that minimizes miscommunication and irrational reaction, or you don't. That's true of every singe instance of communication, I'm not sure why we would expect the problem to be solved here for some reason.

> Careful; this is lightly making the case that I'm unable to discern the difference and therefore off-base for criticizing a real issue.

It most definitely is not. It's making a case that people, in general, are bad at this in my opinion, because it challenges their view of themselves. That doesn't mean you are off-base, that doesn't mean it's not a real issue (I did agree with you, for example), but that the level of importance you attribute to this phenomenon is highly subjective. We agree there's a problem, I think we disagree on the scope and whether it outweighs the benefits imparted, and this is meant as a possible explanation of why why disagree.

> (And, were I less civil, I'd use colorful four-letter words to describe community "norms," as I'd hope any hacker would. I didn't become a hacker because I cared about normality.)

I assume you became a hacker because you like to know how things work. I like to know how things work. "Norms" (culture), are about how groups of people work, or more specifically, it's the informal rules they establish to allow interoperability. The "standards" (in the IEEE sense) by which we are enabled to build our more complex system on top of. Sure, there are negative aspects, such inefficiencies, cruft, and errors, but it's allowed us to get to where we are, so I'm disinclined to view them quite as negatively as you seem to. Something better may come along, but given the irrationality of all people, I'm not sure it will work if it's all that different. I'm interested in hearing alternatives though.