That's a fine reply and settles the moderation point, so I don't mean to pile on—I hope that's clear! But I want to say some more about that guideline because this is a useful example.
You and I came up with different interpretations of this line: "No mention was made of the fact that she was the only female journalist on the ground at Omaha Beach":
Interpretation #1 (yours*): the author thinks the article should have mentioned that, and is perhaps implying something about sexism.
Interpretation #2 (mine): the author just finds it interesting that a striking fact was omitted.
Both our interpretations are plausible—I dare say equally plausible. But the guideline includes a "tie-breaker" for such cases: the word "strongest". This means that when there is more than one plausible interpretation, you should choose the one that makes for the strongest counter-argument to your criticism**.
In this case, #2 is clearly a stronger answer to the criticism "her sex is hardly relevant for the story she wrote" than #1 is, so the tie-breaker would favor #2.
This assumes that the commenter (you in this case) actually thinks of both #1 and #2 in the first place. Often this is not so. But at a meta level the guideline is also saying: "please think of as many interpretations you can and then choose the strongest one etc."
* I might not have phrased this fairly and in that case you can invoke the same guideline against me :)
** This is sometimes called "steelmanning" or "principle of charity".
Thanks for clarifying once again. This confirmed what I understood you meant.
I think your tie-breaker argument is totally fair which is why I didn't even try to contest it. But now that I'm thinking about it a little bit more, I do see a small issue with the guideline. Namely, for me as a commenter, it is ususally unclear whether my interpretation is indeed the strongest plausible one - for one, because what is "strongest" is, at least to a certain degree, subjective. But also, because it is unlikely that a commenter will ever be in a position to realize all possible interpretations of something they would like to comment on.
But like in this case, I don't have a problem in general with you (or someone else) barging in and flagging one of my comments, as long as it's fair, which in this case I think it was.
The upside of his guideline is that commenters should think twice before hitting the keyboard: is there perhaps an interpretation that I missed? I kinda doubt that that's going to become the new way to interact on the internet, but if it did, it would certainly be an improvement.
In context, I believe interpretation number 1 stands on firmer ground than yours.
In the previous paragraph:
> Unlike his wife, Hemingway never went ashore at Normandy. On June 6, all he could do was watch from a landing craft as American soldiers fought their way onto Omaha Beach.
> Even though Gellhorn scooped Hemingway, his story ran first. “Voyage to Victory,” proclaimed the cover of Collier’s July 22, 1944, issue. The article identified Hemingway as “Collier’s famed war correspondent” and included a photo of the whiskered writer with Allied soldiers.
Only then does the section conclude with the line in question
> No mention was made of the fact that she was the only female journalist on the ground at Omaha Beach.
You can argue that the author just finds these and other facts interesting, and nothing more. I think that is ignoring the clear subtext present in the writing. The author is certainly making the case that she was not given the recognition she deserved; either because of her sex or her proximity to Hemingway. Because the author himself invoked her sex in the final line, I am inclined to think the former.
You and I came up with different interpretations of this line: "No mention was made of the fact that she was the only female journalist on the ground at Omaha Beach":
Interpretation #1 (yours*): the author thinks the article should have mentioned that, and is perhaps implying something about sexism.
Interpretation #2 (mine): the author just finds it interesting that a striking fact was omitted.
Both our interpretations are plausible—I dare say equally plausible. But the guideline includes a "tie-breaker" for such cases: the word "strongest". This means that when there is more than one plausible interpretation, you should choose the one that makes for the strongest counter-argument to your criticism**.
In this case, #2 is clearly a stronger answer to the criticism "her sex is hardly relevant for the story she wrote" than #1 is, so the tie-breaker would favor #2.
This assumes that the commenter (you in this case) actually thinks of both #1 and #2 in the first place. Often this is not so. But at a meta level the guideline is also saying: "please think of as many interpretations you can and then choose the strongest one etc."
* I might not have phrased this fairly and in that case you can invoke the same guideline against me :)
** This is sometimes called "steelmanning" or "principle of charity".