I am curious to know if this guideline applies only when responding to HN comments, or if it should be applied to source material in article links as well. I've noticed a lot more conspiracy-theorizing comments lately and it's hard to engage when the whole premise of a given comment is accusing someone else of misrepresenting facts.
It totally applies to the articles too. That wasn't in my mind when we introduced that guideline but it turns out to apply just as nicely at that level.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html