[dang]

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, and especially not on generic ideological flamewar tangents: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....

I know the GP contained a provocation, but that's no reason to single it out, pour fuel on it, and light it on fire. When you do that, you seriously damage this place.

The intended spirit of HN is curiosity (specifically intellectual curiosity), and that implies a completely different way of behaving: overlooking provocations and focusing on something else that's interesting. Please do that instead.

Flamewars, especially on classic flamewar topics, have nothing interesting in them because they're so tediously repetitive, and of course inevitably turn nasty as well (perhaps as a way of making them less boring [1]). So they do multiple kinds of damage here. That's not cool.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

[blacktriangle]

I agree with everything you said, but on the flip side, I do not see provocations like the GP getting flagged, which causes the exact same decay of the community that you are trying to avoid. So in the absence of moderation on those pushing his angle, I'm not sure what we the users are left to do other than push back?

EDIT: Actually, I think this is where HN's lack of a universal downvote button is a weakness. Had that been an option, I'd have simply downvoted his provocation and moved on.

[dang]

It doesn't cause the exact same decay because the original comment was about lots of things, whereas the response was just about the flamebait. The original comment was also about the article, whereas the response was a meta leap into flames of poison. That's a noticeable decay rate.

That said, the GP comment was also a bad post for HN and I've posted a scolding here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27373460.

[unethical_ban]

Preface: I know you act in good faith.

I don't think it's fair to let one person call people racist for being snooty about classical music, but lecture the person who finds that offensive and inappropriate on its own.

[dang]

It's not possible for moderation to be perfectly consistent. For one thing we don't come close to seeing all the posts, and we can't even read the ones we do see particularly closely. There's just far too much content.

I've taken a closer look and agree that the originating comment was also bad, and have posted a reply up there now.