For what it's worth, I partially agree with jnordwick's comment. I've noticed an uptick over the last couple of months in the comments that receive public callouts feeling ideological in nature. It may just be based on who flags posts, since a lot of non polemic low quality posts seem to go dead after a few hours without any flagging, but it may be worth looking into this pattern, because I imagine you don't want to give off the perception that the public callouts come from having the wrong opinions instead of nonconstructive ones.
It would be helpful if you (or anyone) would send links to us at hn@ycombinator.com when you notice comments that break the site guidelines and don't seem to have been moderated. Examples would be comments that are generically ideological or unsubstantive or uncivil.
Whatever our biases are, they're not strongly ideological. I know this won't persuade anyone, but the reason is that after slogging through hundreds of thousands of internet comments, one's only response to what people call their "opinions" is exhaustion. It's as if someone has sandblasted the inside of your brain. The result is tedium, except that word doesn't convey how deep it goes. Imagine an existential void of pure tedium, tedium all around, nothing but tedium—then repeat that phrase a thousand times, and that'll be how we feel about these arguments.
HN moderation isn't about suppressing opinions, though commenters who get moderated sometimes feel like it must be. It's about damping repetition in the faint hope of mitigating tedium. I believe that serves the community, because most people don't come here for rehashes of flamewars. They come for something less predictable.
This would only explain why you don't reprimand some comments, not why you reprimand the comments you do.
Such as the example I gave in another cooment is definitely holding that comment to a higher standard than those you are more ideological sympathetic too.
If I were to point to a similar comment from the other side of the isle, you would rightly say it followed the site guidelines so it doesnt need to be flagged or the author scolded. However, your overly tight rein on one idiological side leads to a ratcheting down on it.
From what I see, the issue really isn't the ideology, it's the tone and/or substance of a post that really matters. "of course there is insider trading, duh" is significantly different from "Spoiler alert: Central planners' plans fail to materialize." The latter uses a speech pattern used in clickbait to illicit an emotional response, and the phrase "central planners" is a politically charged amplification of the actual situation.
The comment is certainly more productive than many others, but it commits the sin of calling the article "Communist apologia" and dang jumped on it. (I flagged dang's scolding for being inappropriate.)
