No.

> Even if they said [...]

We don't have to imagine anything. We can look at what was written (and I quoted it again above). No matter what a person has in mind when writing out, "Don't put ads that breach user privacy", it's not a meaningful reply to the question that was actually asked.

Interesting...

You started with "OP seems [...]", which sort of implies you are interpreting as well...

Whatever, I'll stand corrected I guess. My (and everyone else except you!) reply is not meaningful.

Edit to add: If I ask for a product that does X and respects Y, and someone says "Here are the criteria I use to make sure any product respects your Y requirement", I would accept that as a valid and helpful reply. Maybe it's just me.

> You started with "OP seems [...]", which sort of implies you are interpreting as well...

I edited that in to soften the message. It's like the approach of phrasing things to avoid use of "you" when addressing a topic, to prevent people from getting defensive—which I also do a lot and did here. Clearly that effort was wasted.

You're really convinced about being right, but I don't think the question is nearly that clear. Maybe if they said "what ad service would be acceptable". But they asked what ads would be acceptable, which makes it sound like a description of acceptable ads is a valid response. It's not like they wanted a list of individual ads!

It's straight up ad hominem[1]. Not only is "I edited that in[...]", nowhere close to being a personal attack, it's a direct response to what the other commenter wrote:

> You started with "OP seems [...]"

1. And I'm not talking about intent here (in the case of either remark—mine or yours). "You're really convinced about being right" is undeniably ad hominem.

Me saying that you're confident, but that I am less confident, is not ad hominem.

Generally I would classify neither of our posts as attacks. I'm not sure why you're reacting so strongly to mine.

Making remarks about a person rather than the subject is outright ad hominem (once again, regardless of intent). There is no context where it isn't. I was wrong before about it being "undeniable"; it can be denied. But if you do deny it, then you're wrong.

But it wasn't an attack. When I call your certainty misplaced it's the exact equivalent of how you just said "you're wrong".

It's a bad idea to call other people wrong if you're going to react so strongly to being called wrong yourself.

> But it wasn't an attack.

Here's the thing:

Wiktionary tersely describes "ad hominem" as "A personal attack", so the number of people in disagreement includes: me, the person(s) who wrote that (who is not me), and then the multiple not-mes who have agreed to let it stand. Let's say that's beside the point and somehow flawed.

There's the matter of your last message, where you said it wasn't ad hominem. You have changed tactics to move away from the term "ad hominem" and focus on the phrasing of "personal attack". Is it ad hominem but not a personal attack, or is it not ad hominem?

> it's the exact equivalent of how you just said "you're wrong"

Sorry, no. At best, you're arguing that rightness or wrongness in the case of the original comment is either unknowable or unknown. That's uncertainty. Asserting that a case of ad hominem is not ad hominem isn't a matter of uncertainty. Whether it's true is knowable and known. It's known to be wrong.

> It's a bad idea to call other people wrong if you're going to react so strongly to being called wrong yourself.

This is a straightforward example of ad hominem, FWIW. And I'm not "reacting strongly to be called wrong". Separately from that, even if I were, that would not make it a "bad idea to call other people wrong" (nor would it put those people into a state of being not wrong).

"You're really convinced" is explicitly about the position you're taking, about how correct your interpretation is, not you as a person. It's not ad hominem just because I used the word "you".

It's very slightly rude, but so is telling someone that you only used the word "seems" to soften to blow of telling them they are 'objectively' wrong, and you didn't actually mean "seems". If you don't think your comment was a personal attack, then neither was mine.

> This is a straightforward example of ad hominem, FWIW.

Sure, that is. But it's friendly advice separate from the logical argument. And it's not ad hominem fallacy.

> It's very slightly rude

Irrelevant. It wouldn't matter if you were being rude or not, nor did I claim it was rude. Your comment is an ad hominem as a consequence of what what the definition of ad hominem is—not because of the tone or tenor of what you're saying. You shifted the focus from the argument towards extraneous remarks (untrue or not; could be true, even—doesn't matter) about the person you're responding to. That's ad hominem.

> telling someone that you only used the word "seems" to soften to blow of telling them they are 'objectively' wrong, and you didn't actually mean "seems"

The problem now is that you're making things up.

Once again, my actual comment about softening the message was a direct response to my use of "OP seems [...]" being called into question. It's so far the opposite of a personal attack. It's the consequence of having been proactively conscious about the way the message would read to the point of having tried to spare someone's feelings (even when it shouldn't have been necessary).

> You shifted the focus from the argument towards extraneous remarks (untrue or not; could be true, even—doesn't matter) about the person you're responding to. That's ad hominem.

I didn't do that in my initial comment, the one you originally accused of having ad hominem.

I was using the mention of "you're really convinced" as a reference point to say that I disagreed, and nothing else. That post was entirely about your logical argument, and not about you as a person.

> Once again, my actual comment about softening the message was a direct response to my use of "OP seems [...]" being called into question. It's so far the opposite of a personal attack. It's the consequence of having been proactively conscious about the way the message would read to the point of having tried to spare someone's feelings (even when it shouldn't have been necessary).

Saying "actually, I was just being polite, I didn't mean that word you based your argument on" is rude even though it's honest.

The combination of misleading someone and then harshly pulling the rug out from under them, then saying "clearly that effort was wasted", is not "the opposite" of a personal attack. I wouldn't say it's rude enough to count as a personal attack, but it's definitely going in that direction, and higher than 0.

> It wouldn't matter if you were being rude or not, nor did I claim it was rude.

Are personal attacks not a subset of rude? You said it was a personal attack.

> I didn't do that in my initial comment, the one you originally accused of having ad hominem.

I don't know what comment you think I'm referring to other than the first, nor why or how you can think that the ad hominem in that comment isn't in it.

> Saying "actually, I was just being polite, I didn't mean that word you based your argument on" is rude even though it's honest.

First of all, manufacturing quotes is an offense both in life and by HN's moderation policy.

Secondly, rude-but-honest is a real thing, but this is not an instance of it. You're confusing someone being wounded with whether it happened because another actor was rude. Rudeness is not a necessary precondition to emotional wounds.

If I don't like you and decline your offer to have lunch together, and then at the end of the day you confront me about why it was that we didn't have lunch, and I succinctly explain it and that I'm unlikely to ever agree to have lunch, then it's a very realistic possibility that that's something you feel wounded by. But it's not evidence of me being rude; it's a consequence of you putting yourself in a position where the inevitable result is discovering information that leads to you feeling that way.

The problem with the original commenter's remark goes beyond even that.

The problem was both to question the intent of my wording (which is sufficient alone to give a direct response—no malice necessary), and then to tie that in to their argument as well. My options were to answer the question truthfully, or to let their comments stand, both sacrificing the truth and ceding to what was an unsound argument. It might be accurate to call it rude if it were somehow immaterial and unprovoked (like "pulling the rug out from under" someone), but it wasn't that; to repeat myself now for something like the third time: my comment was a direct response to the person calling attention to the matter. They put themselves in a position to hear the answer they were seeking, and it doesn't require rudeness to have given the response they got.

> The combination of misleading someone and then harshly pulling the rug out from under them

Harshly pulling the rug out from under someone is being a dick. Responding directly to someone with an answer that may upset them is not. And there was no misleading, unlike...

> Are personal attacks not a subset of rude? You said it was a personal attack.

Not interested in the least in litigating this kind of misdirection. In fact, communicating this was the exact intent of the part of my response that you're replying to here: It wouldn't matter if you were being rude or not, nor did I claim it was rude.