Looking at the comments you've posted recently, a couple of them have been flagged, and a couple others have been downvoted (based on seeing that they're variou

Looking at the comments you've posted recently, a couple of them have been flagged, and a couple others have been downvoted (based on seeing that they're various shades of gray). https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blackflame7000 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=blackflame7000 They're all under this same submission, which is quite politically charged, which increases the likelihood that comments will be downvoted or flagged by HN members. I doubt you were moderated in the sense that the mods ('dang and 'sctb) did anything. I suspect it's all user action. Members downvote for all kinds of reasons (and vindictiveness can unfortunately be one of them). If you're concerned about downvotes, I recommend steering clear of politics on HN. While HN can be a great place for constructive discussion, some topics can be very difficult to discuss constructively and civilly. I hope this isn't not too discouraging. When I'm downvoted, I step back and try to determine why, keeping in mind the context and forum. Could I have phrased things better? Was I on-topic? Did I add meaningfully to the discussion? Was I writing from a position of trying to understand and be understood? Was I giving others in the discussion the benefit of the most charitable reading of their comments? If I honestly feel I did everything I could, then I chalk it up to someone downvoting for reasons I couldn't do anything about other than not commenting at all, and let it be.