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Instead of banning the discussion, consider banning the people making it bad. Or, if they are otherwise worthwhile contributors, warn them first.

I'm not sure what options the moderators have right now, but perhaps you should consider adding a three-strikes policy for users making clearly awful comments, with a simple "warn"-UI button for mods.

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Having read part of the threads (I know, I shouldn't have), the problem wasn't so much abuse or bad behavior. It was well intentioned people talking past each other.

I don't think you should ban people for that. @dang is right to just demote it.

Yes. This is what I hate most about political stories on HN. They mostly just create opportunities for people to misunderstand each other, yell at each other, and then get angry at each other. For no good reason.

In the worst of these threads, people don't even disagree; they just don't agree with each other the right way, or don't agree as fiercely as they'd like. No matter; they'll still yell and spit at each other.

Ah, a man after my own heart.

The number of times I stopped myself from "yelling" at people that they weren't even disagreeing or that they had simply misunderstood each other in the last two days....

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