Dang, thanks for stepping in here, and as always, for the unseen work you do behind the scenes keeping the trolls at bay.

Regarding political posts since inauguration, can you explain this, because I am flumoxed:

- on the one hand, there's been a huge surge in clamoring about posts critical of the new administration being flagged

- on the other hand, when such posts have not been flagged, they have consistently and overwhelmingly been dominated by one-sided comments critical of the new administration, while the vast majority of counterargument comments become greyed out, and quite quickly.

- a large portion of that one-sided piling on shows utter disregard for the HN guidelines, esp.:

"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."

I grew up in East Germany, fwiw. The things I have pointed out here remind me more of the bad old days there than the spirit of independent inquiry, individualism and fairness that I associate with the best of America.