[dang]

Much of this ("for some behind-the-scenes, non-investment reasons") you've simply made up for rhetorical reasons.

But even if you were right on the facts, this kind of rant makes for a bad HN comment. A good HN comment is one that contributes to thoughtful, curious discussion. Stimulating rage among those who already agree with you is the opposite of that. Since such comments routinely get upvoted, they're a particularly bad risk to this site.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13080432 and marked it off-topic.

[j4pe]

I'm not happy with your detaching this comment. Thanks for noting that you did it, and why, but other inflammatory comments in this thread have been tempered by well-reasoned child responses. That's reasonable dialogue.

Detaching an on-topic comment for taking the wrong tone doesn't feel like fair discussion.

[dang]

"Tone" is a word people use to trivialize what they're referring to, which means you're assuming your conclusion.

This is a matter not of tone but of content, and the toxic effects of such content. If only we could rely on well-reasoned user responses to neutralize those effects. But internet forums don't work that way, nor large groups of humans in general. For HN to have civil, substantive discussion, moderation is sadly necessary.

Detaching comments, with an explanation of why, has proven to be one of the best moderation techniques we've tried. The sort of rant we're talking about isn't primarily about the topic at hand—it's primarily about state-changing the conversation to something agitated and ragey. Because that counteracts the purpose of this site, such posts forfeit their right to an ordinary position on the page.

Those who want to read such comments still can, but you literally have to go lower to do so. That seems fitting to me, and a reasonable balance of concerns.

[j4pe]

Tone's a perfectly valid word when talking about a fuzzy line between insightful and inflammatory. Some people on e.g. Twitter might complain that justified bans were for mere "tone", but it'd be, what, a compositional fallacy(?) to toss out every argument that uses the word.

Regardless, I see what you mean with the state-changing here. It uses this topic as fodder to rekindle an ongoing internet fight. Something to be avoided. Fair enough.

Perhaps if you do this frequently enough your moderation tools can append the parent link + explanation to the comment body and save yourself some work - but then I guess that'd technically be editing user comments : )

[dang]

Thanks for such a decent reply, and for making me laugh at the end.

[melvinmt]

This was actually one of the more insightful comments on this page…

[the_economist]

Hi dang,

I don't understand what detached means in this context. I am still seeing the comment in the main thread. Is this because of a setting I have?

[dang]

It means it's no longer nested under its original parent (13080432). That way, marking it offtopic will cause it to rank lower on the page.