> it is (almost by definition) less of a problem than aggression which does cross the threshold

Unless you also take into account scale (how often the person does it or how many other people do it) and second-order effects (people who fall for the manipulation and spread it further or act on it). For this reason, I very much prefer people who insult me honestly and overtly, at least I know where I stand with them and at least other people are less likely to get influenced by them.

> I'm not sure this analogy is helpful

This is actually a very rare occasion when an analogy is helpful. As you point out, the emotional abuse can (often?) be worse. TBH when it "escalates" to being physical, it often is a good thing because it finally 1) gives the target/victim "permission" to ask for help 2) it makes it visible to casual observers, increasing the likelihood of intervention 3) it can leave physical evidence and is easily spotted by witnesses.

(I witnessed a whole bunch of bullying and attempts at bullying at school and one thing that remained constant is that people who fought back (retaliated) were left alone (eventually). It is also an age where physical violence is acceptable and serious injuries were rare (actually I don't recall a single one from fighting). This is why I always encourage people to fight back, not only is it effective but it teaches them individual agency instead of waiting for someone in a position of power to save them.)

> I can tell you why that doesn't work

I appreciate this datapoint (and the fact you are open to discussing it, unlike many mods). I agree that it's often hard to distinguish between mistake and malice. For example I reacted to the individual instance because of similar comments I ran into in the past but I didn't check if the same person is making fallacious arguments regularly or if it was a one-off.

But I also have experiences with good outcomes. One example stands out - a guy used a fallacy when arguing with me, i asked him to not do that, he did it again so i did it twice to him as well _while explaining why I am doing it_. He got angry at first, trying to call me out for doing something I told him not to do, but when I asked him to read it again and pointed out that the justification was right after my message with the fallacy (not post-hoc after being "called out"), he understood and stopped doing it himself. It was as if he wasn't really reading my messages at first but reversing the situation made him pay actual attention.

I think the key is that it was a small enough community that 1) the same people interacted with each other repeatedly and that 2) I explained the justification as part of the retaliation.

Point 1 Will never be possible at the scale of HN, though I would like to see algorithmic approaches to truth and trust instead of upvotes/downvotes which just boil down to agree/disagree. Point 2 can be applied anywhere and if mods decide to step in, it IMO is something they should take into account.

Anyway, thanks for the links, I don't have time to go through other people's arguments rn but I will save it for later as it is good to know this comes up from time to time and I am not completely crazy when I see something wrong with the standard threshold-based approach.

Oh and you didn't say it explicitly but I feel like you understand the difference between rules and right/wrong given your phrasing. That is a very nice thing to see if I am correct (though I have no doubt your phrasing was refined by years or trial and error as to what is effective). In general, I believe it should always be made clear that rules exist for practical reasons, not pretend they are some kind of codification of morality.