> But it's certainly telling that only one of these off topic comments actually got flagged.
Well, right now, the flagged one was "Oh, you guys are adorable.", which didn't try to make a substantive argument or convey information. At least the Cheeto one did. "Adorable" is the least-civil and least-useful comment, so it's not only ideology that explains why it got flagged.
I don't think an off-topic comment about Roger Stone and a 15-year old ad hominem meets the bar of constructive HN discourse but we can agree to disagree. I've seen plenty of constructive, right-leaning comments downvoted and flagged while unconstructive partisan pablum from the other side sits there without even being greyed out.
I'd love it if partisan comments regardless of affiliation were more aggressively pruned and the accounts behind them more aggressively moderated, but what we have currently is... not that.
The problem is that factual comments can also be partisan.
- When Biden did dumb stuff, pointing that out was "right-leaning"
- When Trump does dumb stuff, pointing that out is "left-leaning"
Honestly, the greatest improvement to discourse would be stopping trying to apologize for current fuck-ups by pointing at past fuck-ups. That only leads to all fuck-ups being excused.
'Well the last guy...' -> Doesn't matter, not what we're talking about (and will even out in the long run)