Hi dang. I'm sorry it degenerated like this. I generally wanted to read what the hn crowd had to say about about this new device, but all I saw was the usual trolling by an all too loud group. 90% of the comments were (and still are) off topic at best. However I understand that moderation is not my job and rather than calling it out I should have flagged it for you. Since we are in a rare discussion though, I see a growing number of comments from users who are getting very frustrated by the actions of the fanatically pro-Elon and pro-Apple cabal. Since any criticism of them seems to invite a flamewar, I am concerned that debate is getting stiffled. I really hope they are just enthusiasts and not staff guerrilla marketeers, but the effect is the same. We should be discussing this phone and instead we are reading Apple marketing.

The problem is more the upvotes than the comments because it's the upvotes that stick a post like the GP to the top of a thread, which creates all sorts of unintended escalations, as well as derailing the thread into offtopicness. But the only way to prevent this from happening is not to post such comments in the first place.

I think you're off base about "trolling" in this and similar cases. From my perspective HN readers just like different things and have different opinions. I didn't see any trolling or manipulation in the current thread for example. Internet users are orders-of-magnitude too quick to jump to such conclusions.