Please don’t imagine my “true” motivation or inner psychological state and attack me for it. You have no idea what devices I use or what I think of Tim Cook. Even if I had any personal affection for him, if I banned accounts just for criticizing a product or individual I personally liked, I would not have lasted more than a few days before being hounded out by top users of the site.

It’s true that this comment alone was not sufficient for a ban; as I explained in my comment, it’s the pattern of comments, particularly in recent days, continuing a pattern over years that we’ve posted several warnings about. And it's the fact that other users who have a solid track record of contributing positively to HN are being driven away by that style of rhetoric from this user, or at least signaling that these comments were beyond the pale.

Our role here is to make HN a place where reasonable people feel they can have intellectually gratifying discussions that are of higher quality than elsewhere online. When we see signs that good contributors are being driven away by an escalating pattern of toxic comments from a user who has been warned many times over a decade, it would be negligent of us not to act.

As we say all the time, we don’t see every guidelines breach, or reply every time we do; there are over 10,000 comments posted each day and only two of us. But when we see an ongoing pattern of abuse, we always issue warnings, then ban the account if it continues. You’re always welcome to email us ([email protected]) when you see anything egregious, or at least just flag the comment. That's what people do when they wholeheartedly support moderation.