That's false. Any comment that breaks the guidelines should be flagged and killed, whether it's by rayiner or DonHopkins or anyone else. What we see with rayiner is that many of his comments are flagged because people object to his ideology, not because the comment is clearly in breach of the guidelines.
We don't give rayiner any special treatment; many of his comments get killed by flags and are left that way after we review them. But, whatever you think of his politics, he is an intelligent [1] and thoughtful person who has contributed to HN for over 15 years, and is deserving of the same kind of fair, respectful treatment by moderators and fellow community members that we'd extend to anyone else in that category. I don't see how discussions on HN would be improved if the number of notable conservatives/libertarians was much lower than it already is.
That's a very unrepresentative link. Someone interested in moderation bias should filter on flagged comments instead, if some search engine supports it. Let's just say that it doesn't require a sociology degree to see it.
We can learn much about someone from the best of what they post, and it can help us to put their worst into context. I feel like your comment is more cryptic than it would need to be if you had a clear point to make or a clear idea of what we should do differently.
We don't give rayiner any special treatment; many of his comments get killed by flags and are left that way after we review them. But, whatever you think of his politics, he is an intelligent [1] and thoughtful person who has contributed to HN for over 15 years, and is deserving of the same kind of fair, respectful treatment by moderators and fellow community members that we'd extend to anyone else in that category. I don't see how discussions on HN would be improved if the number of notable conservatives/libertarians was much lower than it already is.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...