"Flamewar" has become a weasel word for interesting discussion.
It's a shame HN actively combats debate, the only discussion allowed here is about benign stuff where mostly everyone here agrees.
It's a shame HN actively combats debate, the only discussion allowed here is about benign stuff where mostly everyone here agrees.
Past a certain size, the commentary on an article is hard to digest, and stuff gets repeated in different subthreads. It tends to become quite noisy. I can see the value in trying to steer new discussion away from the hot topic.
Additionally, I think the larger the topic, the more likely it is that you have people chiming who are triggered by emotion rather than thinking out their response (see the above point about most things being already said in a large thread).
Lastly, I have seen good debate on here now and again. I think distinguishing feature is that often people come to a consensus, or agree to disagree.
That said, I do think that there are good debates that have been shut down here, but shouldn't have. Or rather, they are debates worth having, even if HN is the place for them (eg anything skirting the topics of religion or politics)... and it's hard to tell when debates are silently killed if you aren't paying close attention, which I don't, so it's probably a bigger problem than I think.