I agree with the sentiment but here's the thing... The type of person to post an insult or an ad hominem is probably not the type of person who would read this

I agree with the sentiment but here's the thing... The type of person to post an insult or an ad hominem is probably not the type of person who would read this post much less care what it has to say. Because for someone to read this they'd have to care about the impact they have on the community and there's no way an insult or ad hominem can have a positive impact on the community. They are, by definition, expressions of pure negativity so their intent is unquestionably negative. (and don't even get me started on the people who upvote such posts) So you can't just say "lets all get together and fix this" because the people who would answer your call aren't the people causing the problem. Then the question becomes "how do you deal with the people causing the problem". The only answer I can see is banning. Because said group is made out of two types of people: Those who don't care about the community and those who care about the community but care about expressing their own anger more. So the first group just won't care and the second group can't help themselves. But then the question is "Do you really want Hacker News to be a place where people get banned on a regular basis?". First I don't think pg even has the time for that and second I think most would find that off putting. So (and pardon me for the long comment here) we end up where we started. Trying to be civil and interact with the civil members of the community while trying to ignore those who don't care about civility.