I would strongly wish to urge you to continue to avoid contentious topics like ongoing wars or domestic US politics. These topics nearly destroyed /., if you've been there 2014-2016 you know what I mean, and it took them many users, great efforts, and changes in the moderation system to get it on track again. I left /. forever at this time, and many other did, too.
If you insist on highly controversial topics, you should at least provide ways for users to block other HN users and all of their submissions in a symmetric way (if X blocks Y, X and Y cannot see each others posts). To give you a sense of perspective, I discussed the current Israel/Palestine situation on Reddit, and had to (i) mute more than a dozen subreddits, (ii) block about a hundred users, and (iii) report half a dozen users. I received private messages by people I haven't even discussed with that literally threatened my family with rape and death. Of course, these accounts were removed, but the danger of leaking one's real identity and corresponding real-world consequences are still high on pseudonymous sites. Not everybody on HN is a tech billionaire who can afford private bodyguards.
For many people, me included, it is not a good solution either to just have an ability to hide a thread without voicing any opposition to the partly horrendous discussions in it. Although I want to leave Academia (and probably will), I'm currently working as a philosopher on moral decision-making and related topics in meta-ethics, and that means that I feel obliged to sometimes participate in such threads, if they exist. But my take is that, if possible, they should be avoided. There is no lack of social media where people can discuss politics and ongoing wars.
If you insist on highly controversial topics, you should at least provide ways for users to block other HN users and all of their submissions in a symmetric way (if X blocks Y, X and Y cannot see each others posts). To give you a sense of perspective, I discussed the current Israel/Palestine situation on Reddit, and had to (i) mute more than a dozen subreddits, (ii) block about a hundred users, and (iii) report half a dozen users. I received private messages by people I haven't even discussed with that literally threatened my family with rape and death. Of course, these accounts were removed, but the danger of leaking one's real identity and corresponding real-world consequences are still high on pseudonymous sites. Not everybody on HN is a tech billionaire who can afford private bodyguards.
For many people, me included, it is not a good solution either to just have an ability to hide a thread without voicing any opposition to the partly horrendous discussions in it. Although I want to leave Academia (and probably will), I'm currently working as a philosopher on moral decision-making and related topics in meta-ethics, and that means that I feel obliged to sometimes participate in such threads, if they exist. But my take is that, if possible, they should be avoided. There is no lack of social media where people can discuss politics and ongoing wars.