I'd love to hear why this was flagged, as it's very squarely within HN guidelines. Curiously, although it's not [dead] and was only posted a few hours ago, this story is totally missing from the HN topic list. I can only speculate as to why.
You can always ask us, as you know. Moreover, the answer is almost always that users flagged it (as you surely also know after all these years), so I'm not sure I follow the sudden spike of speculation.
Users flagged it. We can only guess why users flag things, but in this case I'd guess it's connected to how terrible and tedious the thread is. Even by the low-quality standards of a flamewar this is way below the line.
Edit: I've turned off the flags now because I don't want the paper to get judged by these comments. The thread also set off the flamewar detector and I'm not going to turn that off.
I guess none except some prejudice on the username.
I’ve experimented with different usernames and if you have an obviously Chinese or Indian username, you WILL get downvoted or censored or chastised by dang.