>This behavior sometimes doesn't get swatted down fast enough nor ruthlessly enough and bad comments are left to stand. People see these comments and think they're acceptable. And the standards erode.
>Flag ruthlessly, downvote comments that don't belong here, based on tone rather than disagreement.
I'm unsure of what you're advocating for. Are you for expunging the hyper-negative, misogynistic near-spam of Reddit, or for doing away with negativity entirely? (My hunch is latter, as fighting spam is trivially excepted and needn't be argued.) The latter is incredibly dangerous and will work to the detriment of the community inasmuch as HN, as a community of generally-intelligent individuals, is capable of analyzing a story to a greater extend than most news organizations or communities; and some sort of assault on negativity would remove the ability for one to introduce warranted skepticism or to dissent from general discussion. Skepticism, contrarianism, criticism, etc. are incredibly valuable tools and are fundamental to HN and to discourse in general. One should not have the merits of their ideas judged solely on the "tone" articulated by them, and HN should certainly not seek to create institutionalized positivity.