You think it's okay to call people names i.e. a jerk? Do you call other people names in your professional life?

> Hacker News Guidelines

> Be kind.

Ask yourself if you would tell your partner that they are a jerk. It sounds abusive. It makes me wonder how you treat other people in the meat space.

It doesn't sound as bad to me as I guess it does to you. There's a lot of variability in how words sound to people, especially across geographical ranges.

I use the word 'jerk' when one user is being rude to another in a gratuitous-supercilious way, which is not quite the same thing as 'personal attack' although they obviously overlap.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

I've used the word 'asshole' for more severe cases, usually when there's a repeated pattern of it:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

This joke is older than jargon file.

Of course it's an old joke but that's not the point.