I'm sorry your account got rate-limited (I'm a mod here) - it's a restriction on new accounts that's based on past abuses by spammers and trolls, and is not intended to prevent authors from discussing their work here. I've marked your account legit so this won't happen again, and I'm going to restore your comment that got throttled.
This is a significant drawback in HN's system and we're intending to fix it.
Calling somebody's work "bullshit" is about on the same level as name-calling, even if your criticism is totally legitimate. In general "it's true" doesn't really make sense as a defense for incendiary words. So I don't think it's unreasonable to say your headline is in some way trolling. Of course, it's hard to blame somebody if the thing they're replying to is dramatic enough, but I just don't think bad journalism on a tax article (giving you the benefit of the doubt - I don't know who's right) meets that bar here. There's enough noise in the journalist-hate genre that it's already a job filtering it down to the reasonable critiques.
> I mean saying that my headline was incendiary is fair. That's just not synonymous with trolling imo?
I'm the one who originally used 'trolling' above. The definition of 'trolling' is an interesting question: It's a new meaning for that word (relative to most meanings for most words), it's a loaded word, and an important one. Maybe I should have used a more precise word.
Whether it's 'trolling' or 'incendiary' or 'inflammatory' or 'link bait' or etc. - even if unintentionally - the result is the same. That's out of bounds for HN titles. If you want a sense of HN's approach, see these comments by moderator dang:
Ok, useful context. Thanks. (I've never submitted my own link, but it seems my readers do from time to time. I'll try to be mindful of this if it's something I'd like to see posted here.)
If the title contains a gratuitous number or number + adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."
Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
