[dang]

I don't think what you're seeing is suppression—it's just the preference of the bulk of the community. That's frustrating when you feel strongly that it should be otherwise (for good reason), but there isn't some extraneous nefarious force at work here; it's just that most HN users don't want the site to turn into a battlefield.

[johnnyanmac]

I'd rather this be data-driven than feels-driven. But sadly I lack such data.