I hear you, and I appreciate you stepping in to explain. But I think if you read the comments, they were quite respectful considering the level of controversy about this topic. Certainly a more civil treatment than Reddit or Twitter. If we can't debate here, the only outlets become much more toxic communities.

I hope the detector does more than decreasing the visibility of topics on which there is more disagreement than usual (higher quantity of downvotes?). I think quite a few important discussions would have that feature (but also flamewars, which probably makes the distinction difficult).

The post you're linking to says that it was suspended.

Of course we're interested in user input. I spend most of my time talking to HN users in one form or another.

I'm surprised because I thought there was a passionate but healthy debate about the matter, unlike what you'd see on Twitter or Reddit. A lot of opinions were expressed but I didn't see anybody calling out names, using epithets, shutting people down, etc.

HN's treatment of controversial topics generally is more respectful than elsewhere, which is why it is disappointing to see them shut down or buried here, when much more toxic discussions get promoted on other sites.