It had been brewing a while, in my opinion. What I was seeing happening was, reasonable people would point out flaws in the article, then a moderator would jump in and argue with the person like they were a child and their points were stupid, escalating the situation and probably now pissing off more people than just the original complainer. I stopped reading their comments because of the moderators. Moderators should be seen and not heard.

Topolsky has been gone from there for a year, so it's just Co.

Deleting comments, locking threads created by reasonable people - in general, over-zealous mods suppressing the voices of users who don't toe the party line - is an unforgivable sin if you're trying to manage an online community, and The Verge is really terrible at this.