True, however HN is designed for fair civil discussion.

It comes down to the goals of the site owner. Do they want to create a community and moderate accordingly. Or is it simply a way to up the time-spent metric through readers having a peek to see how stupid the comments are, or not being able to resist throwing in their own two cents.

I'm not suggesting I am any better that the average net user, I said "wasted effort" for a reason.