And the whole "donglegate" story didn't go against that same stance?

Many of the donglegate stories were flagged off the front page. That story was broader, involving behaviours at tech conventions, responses to that behaviour, Internet bullying and mobs, etc.

Donglegate was still lousy for HN. Most threads had little useful discussion, a lot of entrenched opinion, and a lot of heat. ("shallowly, but intensely, interesting").

This? This is nothing useful.

100% agree. That story had too much crap being thrown around. On the other hand, this is a serious issue/story involving a very influential person in SV, tech-media and tech-investing. It shouldn't be ignored that easily.

It did, which is why almost all of the stories where removed. The few that survived tended to talk about the issues in a general, timeless fashion and use "donglegate" as an example.

There's obviously no clear litmus test here...so I don't think the editorial decision is an easy one. In the Adria Richards case, HN mods couldn't ban all the submissions, nor would it be in their best interests to do so, because that controversy raised tech-related issues worth discussing.

Anyway, I don't know what the best mix of discretion and freedom is...but HN would lose some of its allure if its policy was: "Only allow links that are explicitly technical/entrepreneurial in nature" Because how many times do hackers need to learn that success in life and business is sometimes (or, rather, often) not based just on technical merit?

How is a story killed after a few minutes (not the auto-dead filters)? Does it happen when a story receives a certain number of flags? Does it require moderator intervention?