There has been a recurring pattern of quite vitriolic ad hominem attacks on certain people on HN in a way that I can only describe as "celebrity-bashing" for qu

There has been a recurring pattern of quite vitriolic ad hominem attacks on certain people on HN in a way that I can only describe as "celebrity-bashing" for quite while now. Other favorite targets are for instance RMS and Gruber. This isn't just the odd troll. There's a lot of cheerleading going on in the form of upvotes, even though the attacks don't contribute anything, and would normally be downvoted into light grey.