[This is a update / rewrite of the sibling comment; I lost the ability to edit the other comment.]

I intend for this to come across as somewhat philosophical, and I hope people can expand their points of view. We need more grounding in philosophy here in the technology world -- ways to combat a severely limited set of beliefs and habits that have grown out of a insular culture.

> Discussion and subthreads off the main thread flow organically, and it's OK for them to not stay strictly on the main topic of the post

Sure, it is "OK" per the HN Guidelines.

Also, yes, these things happen. Lots of things happen, and they have a range of desirability. (See also the naturalistic fallacy, is-ought fallacy, and appeal to nature.)

Not all comments and subthreads are equally useful to us. It is ok for me or anyone to shape the conversation in ways that they think are beneficial. We don't have to agree on the fundamental principles in play here; we have different approaches and probably values.

> Besides, this is one of several comments you've left with the same putdowns in this thread.

It is completely inaccurate to call my comments "putdowns" which are defined as "snub, disparaging remark, insult, slight, affront, rebuff, sneer, disparagement, humiliation, slap in the face, barb, jibe...".

These comments are constructive criticisms. (You may not like that they involve an explicitly stated redirection. Not everyone may be as up-front as I am about what I'm doing, but redirection is common, useful, and essential.) People can take it, leave it, and/or comment about it. This is how discussion can work, and it is also how discussion should work in many cases.

> They have added more irrelevant to the discussion noise than their parent comments ever did.

My comments serve the purpose of refocusing conversation towards the primary topic. Calling that irrelevant seems silly to me. If you call my comment irrelevant, then logic requires a similar labeling for your comment. [3]

It would be inconsistent to say "Discussion and subthreads off the main thread flow organically" while also saying my comment doesn't belong. (You didn't quite say that, but it is very much implied by your tone.)

If it is ok for conversations to meander like you suggest, then it is ok to have conversations about what we're talking about, including suggestions about where to take them.

You expressed your point of view. I happen to disagree, and I've given my reasoning. It has been civil. Good job, us.

On Topic Drift: Let me ask you this: would you rather have a thread about debugging wander off into, e.g. criticisms of JetBrains the company? I personally would not. You might.

Governance: There are questions of "what is best" that are not easily agreed upon. The Hacker News (HN) Guidelines are a good start, but they are incomplete. We also don't get a direct influence in what they are. They are "handed down" to us. We're participants here without direct influence on policy or goverance. We can vote up and down, flag, or persuade with discussion. We don't have other ways to guide policy or govern here on HN. There is are tracks/paths to increased moderation abilities, such as with Stack Exchange web sites or Wikipedia. There are no "meta" channels either.

Infighting By Design: Due to the lack of proper governance, these kinds of discussions happen a lot, and they can be divisive. We should not "blame" ourselves when they happen. If anything, the unifying 'problem' is Hacker News itself. This is a design issue. Human nature is predictable. Until HN offers more ways to handle it directly, these kinds of conversations will keep happening.

My goal here?: I hope I've elevated the discussion beyond what could have been a rather uninteresting clash over simplistic ideas over "what is on-topic?" or "what are the rules?" or even "what is right?".

Personal Motivations: Both open discussions and ethics matter tremendously. Too often people don't address the elephant in the room, which often involves "how do we want these conversations to work"? while also admitting "we don't really have the levers of control we might want." Throughout a 20+ year career, I rarely see thoughtful, substantive conversations about these topics. Too many technology people skip right past them.