[cbHXBY1D]

> Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar.

Dang, question: how is this nationalistic? It seems to me the opposite - it's pointing out the media, Reddit, and this site's blatant (IMO sinophobic) double standard.

[dang]

The issue is the expected value of the subthread. Is it predictable that a comment would blow up into a flamewar? If so, then it was flamebait. In this case the flamebait was nationalistic because the topic was in the 'nations' bucket.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Adding snark and flamey rhetoric to generalizations about nations (and group views of nations) is guaranteed to evoke worse from others and put a thread into a downward spiral. The GP spawned 140+ comments, almost 80% of the entire page, and the discussion is between poor and terrible. It's full of mechanical repetition of the same angry things people say everywhere the same trigger comes up ("China is a totalitarian state", "China lied about literally EVERYTHING"). Indignation plus repetition is the worst combo for HN. Meanwhile the other 20% of the discussion on this article is actually not bad. That is the difference between provoking a flamewar vs. not. It's not cool, and the root comment is most responsible for it.

In case it helps, I've spent many hours telling HN users that they can't post inflammatory rhetoric about or against China or Chinese people.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...