> I don't know what we can do to prevent HN from sliding into the hell of nationalistic flamewar. The problem is getting noticeably worse and it's deeply dismay

> I don't know what we can do to prevent HN from sliding into the hell of nationalistic flamewar. The problem is getting noticeably worse and it's deeply dismaying. dang: its not an easy task for sure, and I agree it's deeply dismaying. Politics, unlike FPGAs or software architecture, is something that anyone can have an opinion on. There is no barrier to entry and thus anyone and everyone who has ever consumed a news clip is free to participate with their strong opinions. Expertise is just a wikipedia article away. In the heat of the debate, there are often flashes of vitriol (i.e - some of my comments in this thread are needlessly provocative). Mainstream media headlines seem deliberately designed to illicit exactly the kind of nationalistic flamewar you describe. In my estimation, China appears to be the current topic that people feel the most strongly about. Everyone desires a clearly defined ‘evil’ thing to rally against. I’m not sure what the solution is. Topics on politics+China cannot be banned as the website would immediately be accused of censorship and mollification due to conflicting interests (i.e YC China). But if people are to discuss and debate contentious topics, they should do so in an informed and good faith manner - something which can only be manually enforced by mods. The current status quo of manual moderation and the flagging system seems to be working ok, but may be a constant and growing burden for mods to constantly educate, warn and ban users for inappropriate comments. Maybe there could be an automated pre-warning pinned to the top of heavily flagged topics? I’ve seen it done on Reddit (for example [1]) to decent effect: a gentle reminder of the posting guidelines localized at the scene of, and tailored to the specific topic (since certain topics tend to draw in certain types of comments time and time again). It might allow users the opportunity to think twice about what they are about to post. Might be something to consider. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/bkmdtr/joe_biden_is_a_disaster_waiting_to_happen/ https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/bkmdtr/joe_biden_...