The thing I really like about HN's commenting system is that it's explicitly designed to discourage flamewars -- the way heavily downvoted comments end up "dead" means that "edgy" content is quickly buried.
Contrast that to Facebook or Twitter, where only positive signals exist, and the entire system is designed to surface "edgy" content as much as possible (because it gets the most engagement!)
Contrast that to Facebook or Twitter, where only positive signals exist, and the entire system is designed to surface "edgy" content as much as possible (because it gets the most engagement!)