Thanks for the balanced reply! Fair enough re "accusation". If I had read your comment more closely I would have said "insinuation", which is the word that the guidelines use anyway.
> Is it within the rules to state that a commenter is an employee of "${CO}"? I note the commenter who did that did not get flagged.
That's a tough one to answer unequivocally. Bringing in someone's personal details as ammunition in an argument is generally not allowed: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so..., so if I had to pick yes or no I'd say no. But one can imagine lots of borderline cases.
Remember that to argue that the comment contained an "accusation" requires that one draw some inference from the inclusion of the Wikipedia URL. Inlcuding the URL was a mistake. The statement I made however contained no accusation. It merely drew attention to the fact that Googlers often disclose their employer when talking about Google stuff on HN but in this case the person made not mention of it. I found that noteworthy. The inference to be made there would simply be potential bias. I think that's fair.
Is it within the rules to state that a commenter is an employee of "${CO}"? I note the commenter who did that did not get flagged.