If political discussions that evoke partisan loyalties end up being classified as “flame wars” due to the definition in the article, then if those involved in the so-called flame wars are censured (throttled etc) then effectively the topic has been discouraged simply because the votes averaged lower than the number of comments. Over time users learn to ignore such topics.

The big goof up is in the idea that all discussions with widespread disagreement are harmful. It’s an absurd view of manners akin to saying that discussion about the ethics of slavery is simply rude to participate in regardless of one’s views and regardless of whether any of the comments are actually rude or disrespectful (or are even, themselves, partisan. The votes may be where partisanship gets introduced).

Slavery is a bad example because it seems morally obvious and thus the enlightened side seems obvious. But many issues today lack moral clarity which is why intelligent discussion of them is deeply important.

Politics can be messy but in many ways political topics represent the conflict between values as some values gain or lose prominence.

As a received impression, it may accurately reflect an emergent property of HN, and many other popularity-based ranking sites.

It's possible to either vote up, or flag, articles. Political articles which hit a major divide may see much of both actions. I've seen and been disaappointed by articles I thought should get more play that were flagged off the front page.

That's not a direct reflection of HN admin actions, but is undeniably tied to site mechanics, and so is something of an admin metaaction.

I've inclued several of these in my Favourites list