> Do you really think there needs to be a guideline saying "comments should be on-topic"?
Of course not. I thought the way I wrote made it very clear that I was championing the fact that there's no such rule. If you really misconstrued my comment as the twisted opposite of that, perhaps I need to learn to write better.
> Wouldn't you assume that based on ... the guidelines ...
Actually, no. I see nothing in the guidelines that even urge us to stay on-topic.
> ... and how we generally conduct ourselves in the comments?
Definitely, no. Comments on HN — especially toplevel comments — frequently fork and/or launch entirely new conversations. In fact, that is one of the reasons I enjoy reading HN. I always know, when I click on the comments of a link post, to not expect any discussion about what's contained in the link, because of how reliably often that happens.
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> But despite all that, the guidelines do ask us to avoid generic tangents and to not post shallow dismissals. I'd say the comment at the top of this thread qualifies on both counts.
Maybe it does; maybe it doesn't. That's not the point. This is the point: shutting down a thread because someone thinks the conversation is not "on-topic" for the post.
Oh wait. Did you want to change the topic of conversation? Isn't that how we generally conduct ourselves in the comments? Do you now see what I mean?
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> Now we're many messages deep here arguing about what belongs ...
No, "we" are not. You are. I am not engaging in this conversation that you are trying to start by going off on a generic tangent.
> ... and that itself is a violation of the most important guideline: this is boring to read.
I just didn't want the shallow dismissal that my parent was using to shut down discourse to become more commonplace on this forum. I _like_ HN for that kind of discourse. I learn more because of "off-topic" discussions. It is precisely because I do not want HN to become what my parent was advocating — all comments shall stay on one topic only, that of the submission — that I replied. Because _that_ would be boring.
I am sorry you found my comment boring. I wasn't arguing to argue about what belongs here. I was defending the presence of sth I didn't believe was too boring to be allowed here. Of course, such writing can be boring to read. I tried to do what I could to make it less boring. But, as always, there's room for improvement.