It isn't a question of blaming a person. It's a question of where the flamewar started, and it's clear that it started with the off-topic, generic, nationally-themed comment that began with Iran, went straight to an opposition to Saudi Arabia, etc. I didn't say this was intentional—on the contrary. It would be nice if unintentional fires didn't burn as hot as intentional ones, but the opposite is the case.
The way we moderate threads like this is rooted in many years of experience with the dynamics of internet forums. It was predictable that a comment like that would provoke a flamewar (as indeed we got, leading all the way to the Godwin-lite of 9/11). Commenters here need to learn about this dynamic and be less negligent if they want to keep commenting here—otherwise the site will end up in flames.
If most of you (where by you I mean all of us) look at your reactions closely, you'll notice that in most cases where you dislike a moderation decision, it's because you sympathize with the comment that was moderated. But when we ask someone not to start flamewars or ask them to stop continuing a flamewar, such moderation posts are quite orthogonal to the content of the argument. I can sympathize 100% with the content of a comment and sympathize 100% with its author's feelings and still post exactly the same as if those numbers were 0 rather than 100. (Edit: this is a slight exaggeration, but in a way that's a separate topic.) It's just the nature of the job, and the same would be true for anyone else after they'd done this enough thousands of times.
The way we moderate threads like this is rooted in many years of experience with the dynamics of internet forums. It was predictable that a comment like that would provoke a flamewar (as indeed we got, leading all the way to the Godwin-lite of 9/11). Commenters here need to learn about this dynamic and be less negligent if they want to keep commenting here—otherwise the site will end up in flames.
If most of you (where by you I mean all of us) look at your reactions closely, you'll notice that in most cases where you dislike a moderation decision, it's because you sympathize with the comment that was moderated. But when we ask someone not to start flamewars or ask them to stop continuing a flamewar, such moderation posts are quite orthogonal to the content of the argument. I can sympathize 100% with the content of a comment and sympathize 100% with its author's feelings and still post exactly the same as if those numbers were 0 rather than 100. (Edit: this is a slight exaggeration, but in a way that's a separate topic.) It's just the nature of the job, and the same would be true for anyone else after they'd done this enough thousands of times.