Comment by arp242

As a general point I agree that it would be better that a flag disables replies to the entire subthread (although it shouldn't [dead] it), just because 99% of the time they're just not good discussions. However, the claim that this is somehow "destroying lives" is rather unserious. Whatever may or may not be going on on Kiwifarms has little to do with HN, and the occasional idiotic comment on HN is ... just the occasional idiotic comment on HN. There are also not really that many of them.

Also, I'll add that whenever I've seen an unflagged hateful comment I've emailed hn@ycombinator.com, and the success rate in getting the comment killed and people told off (or banned) is thus far exactly 100%. This usually happens if someone leaves a comment a few days after the discussion dies down, so few see (and flag) it.