This comment hiding is a good feature. For judicious use, it greatly enhances the experience for both collaborators (people with write access to the repositories) and viewers. When overused, it allows collaborators to do what they want, as they should be able to, because GitHub provides tools for organizing communities* rather than communities themselves. For astute viewers, it provides a chance to observe the way that the collaborators manage their communities.

* For an alternative of having shared ownership of open source, see Zed Shaw's post about Launchpad https://web.archive.org/web/20120318224723/http://sheddingbi...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2299748