[dang]

I spent my entire day moderating those threads—to the detriment of the rest of HN actually. That happens sometimes when one story takes all the moderation oxygen. See the links below. (Edit: I'm going to move them to a child comment and collapse it so as not to overload this thread with 40 links. They're there if anyone wants them.) The reason I didn't post the comment I mentioned in the GP was not lack of moderation, but the opposite: I was moderating so much that I didn't want to be accused of over-intervening.

If anyone cares - in the end the decisions I made were (1) to factor out the comments that were actually about Bob Lee into their own thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457341), and (2) to let the other flamewar just burn since there wasn't anything we could to do stop it. The first decision was a good one—that thread spent many hours at the top of the front page. The second decision was probably good also—I have a pretty fine-tuned sense of what we can't control. But I do regret not posting that other reminder. I very much wanted to, and overruled myself—and now I wish I had left a better record of the mods upholding the value of not rushing to judgement. I was painfully aware of this at the time.

p.s. You might be wrong about Garry too. I happened to talk with him that morning and although he didn't try to influence how we handled the story on HN (people at YC don't do that), the direction of the conversation was opposite to what you're assuming. (In any case, if you're implying that Garry's politics influence HN moderation in any way, that's definitely wrong. We haven't changed anything since he came back to YC.)

[dang]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35486328

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35476876

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35476872

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35472256

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35472227

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35472223

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35472212

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35472140

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35464652

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35464630

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35464305

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35464293

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35464011

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35462897

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35461644

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35461639

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35461615

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35461026

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35460904

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35459597

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35459100

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35458875

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35458185

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35458135

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35458074

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35458022

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35458002

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457994

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457951

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457815

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457642

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457617

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457562

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457507

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457402

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457289

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457243

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457192

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457134

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457127

Btw I wasn't favoring either side in the flamewar, just doing the standard mod thing of asking people not to break HN's rules so badly.