Comment by zahlman

That penalises legitimately contentious topics and promotes status quoism, which are two of HN's greatest failings.

Moderation (mostly by HN members) and admonishments (by mods) are HN's tools for promoting civil discourse even on difficult topics. They're ... limited tools, but it's what we've got.

We prefer not to shut down ongoing conversations. Also, the usual case is that you get some subthreads which are fine alongside others which are downward spirals. Killing the former in order to kill the latter feels like...overkill.