Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think that depending on which stories on HN one choose to read, the community may feel entirely different. I think I'm lucky that for the most part the stories I read attract high quality comments.

The two topics I enjoy which are continually controversial are the "Russian Hacking" story and stories about Wikileaks. Wikileaks has been an interest for many HN readers for years, and so it's interesting to see how recent events have created political polarization where none existed before.

I've noticed that some users will use the tactic of shaming to try to make a point in a discussion. It's hard to describe this, but it's much more like the sort of comments one finds in other discussion fora than what is typically found on HN. Politics brings these out, yet I would be very disappointed if political topics were discouraged on HN, since political ideas and participation are an important part of citizenship and community. And it may take the sort of retort one would get on HN to break someone out of a lazy "comfort zone" belief that they hold simply because it's popular.

Thanks for your efforts moderating, I know it is a thankless duty, but your comment makes me realize that there are likely threads that I don't participate in which get much worse.