Comment by dang

We definitely try to moderate the same way. For example personal attacks on authors are no more ok than personal attacks on fellow commenters; shallow dismissals of other people's work are not ok (regardless of whose work it is), and so on. The limit on this is just that (many) people don't follow the guidelines in either case, no matter how often we repeat them.

I do think you're right that there's an tendency to be harsher on authors, though—because it feels like they're not "in the room". It's like gossip: we're all looser-lipped when someone's not around. That would explain your observation that the comments change once you show up as a commenter in the thread about your article. Gossip mutes itself when the person being gossiped about walks in.

The trouble, of course, is that on the internet this is an illusion. The author is "in the room", or soon will be after they track the referring URL of all the traffic. Then they show up and get to hear all the things people were saying when they "weren't there".