alt Hacker NewsThe language is clear and unambiguous, and is intended to set a floor for the caliber and quality of discussion here.
I take your point, but the humor, if it was that, was made clumsily and was not well received. It’s not just me who felt that way; it was downvoted and eventually killed.
Is it though? Almost all the guidelines are curt and open to interpretation. For example, what counts as snarky? What counts as kind? Is there some hidden arbiter in between the characters I can't see? Not everyone will know exactly what these mean in every situation.
In truth, the rules here are intentionally vague, so they can be used as a cudgel by people who don't like what they read. For the mods it's for behavioral control, and for the users it's for thought control. The mods want the website to be a financial tool for YC, and the users want all opinions to mirror their own. But HN is built awkwardly, and forces too many different kinds of users into one tiny space. So the mods do what they can to remove submissions and kill comments, to make the appearance of some kind of nerd chat gestalt. This thread is an example of that failed attempt at enforced harmony. You can't punish people into electing to behave the way you want, it just makes them angry.