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> I thought HN wasn't doing that for a week

We weren't, but since a week turned out to be longer than needed and I was worried about the cost of continuing, we ended the experiment early: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251. So it's back to the normal guidelines now.

(The worry about continuing was because there was evidence that some people thought the change was permanent, and that was not the intention.)

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Yesterday I reviewed all the headlines and saw none of the usual political click-bait sprinkled among them with their inevitable 200+ post flame wars. It was wonderful; like having a cast removed or getting a tooth fixed. I hope your experiment leads to a similar policy.

I had the same impression that there were fewer inflammatory comments, but am trying to keep two things in mind: one is that I know that I'm biased and would like to see quantitative data, and that there were submissions flagged on which I would have liked to see discussion by those on Hacker News. I think the data would be interesting regardless, but I don't think it would be meaningful because it wouldn't represent the HN that I'd like to see. I'd like to figure out tactics that reduce inflammatory discussion that still permit constructive discussion on contentious submissions.

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