If that guideline is meant to cover the words “utter nonsense” it is not intuitive to anyone

I think the point is that you can strongly disagree with a statement without painting its author as incompetent. Regardless of whether that was the intent, that's certainly how it reads.

Going one step further, you can strongly disagree with a statement without attaching a value judgement to the other person's argument.

In spirit, this rule should hold even if you aren't attacking the author directly but are disparaging the value of their perspective.

That is simply unnecessary and you can just refute the point directly.

I don't see much daylight between "utter nonsense" and "that is idiotic".

I think you are being too harsh on parent.

How is that worse than people literally calling each other's comments bullshit on HN?

Examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6805295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5111959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6410617 .. and many more

It isn't worse - it's the same thing.

What "name-calling" would that be exactly?

I see "Sorry but this is utter nonsense" as ad hominem, a put down, with overtones of a dismissive "wiser" person dismissing out of hand what is said. That effect of this psychological slight outweighs the fact that they did back up their argument afterwards and didn't leave it as just an unsubstantial comment.

Kind of like a microagression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression, I think...

Human language and idioms are hard to create rulesets for. Probably "name-calling" is too specific, but "microagression" may not be understood by all. However it is sad if we need to lawyer the guidelines.

No calling an argument "utter nonsense" doesn't imply anything about the person making the argument. You may think it is ad hominem but technically it simply isn't since it isn't directed to a person but rather their argument.

However, in this context, calling their argument "utter nonsense" is utterly unnecessary and only serves to up the ante.

It isn't just about being personal (though that's particularly bad). It's about not tossing in pejoratives and putdowns. The HN guidelines are clear about this:

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

We don't want name-calling (in this sense) because it leads to dumber, nastier internet discussion.

It's also particularly easy to avoid. If you take out its first sentence, the GP comment loses nothing but hostility and becomes a far better HN contribution.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think you misunderstood my comment. I agree with the spirit of the rule and hold a similar view to what you explained.

I was pointing out to the commenter that while it was not technically as hominem, it is still not acceptable and doesn’t add anything to the discussion.

Oops, I think I might have replied to the wrong comment. Sorry about that!

Good point (I might be replying to edited version?)

There is no edited version