We do draw, and will continue to draw a distinction between posting in your own substack, and commenting on another substack. In the latter case, we take a “your house your rules” approach. In your own comment section, you can temp ban commenters and leave the comments hidden-but-available to set your norms, (which I agree is generally a wise approach) or you can delete stuff if you want. Or you can say anything goes.

Everyone is free to make sharp critiques (or hurl insults) in their own space. And everyone is free to set the rules and norms they want for discussion in their space, which is what a comment section is.