I am well aware that it is complicated. When a controversial thread is reported, a rather large number of variables are referenced by your mind - some of these

I am well aware that it is complicated. When a controversial thread is reported, a rather large number of variables are referenced by your mind - some of these you are aware of, some of them you are not. But at the end of the day, in the aggregate, either there is zero slant (by topic) whatsoever, or there is greater than zero. Based on my anecdotal observations over a long period of time, my perception is that there are indeed certain topics that are less welcome than others, and the assurances I've read, while plausible, do not seem adequate. If we were able to see a log of removed topics it may be more reassuring. I'd rather HN had more freedom of topic discussion at least occasionally as an experiment, and then perhaps we could see if some modifications to guidelines (perhaps just on those threads) could keep things a bit more civilized. If no site is willing to put some effort into finding a workable approach to this problem, it seems reasonable that the world is just going to keep becoming more polarized as people spend more time at sites that are designed from scratch to be information bubbles.