But I’m surprised about the “ideological/nationalistic flamewar comments” part. A lot of current issues in the news and on HN are political and especially geopolitical. Tariffs, Nvidia chips, DOGE, Ukraine/Russia war, for example. So there will be lots of comments that are ideological or nationalistic because that’s what is at the core of these issues. I guess what I’m asking is - are substantive politely worded comments that are still “ideological” or “nationalistic” (if I am using these words the same way) allowed?

Another thought: it looks like these types of stories have stopped being removed due to flags (like the DOGE ones), and with that change I see lots of comments in those discussions that I would consider tedious or just ideological (to me anyways). But they seem to allowed to stand because they’re the popular view on HN - maybe they don’t get downvoted or flagged as much so they don’t get attention from mods. Do you think the typical flagging and voting patterns result in more moderation on the less popular views on HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html