I'm sorry I neglected to reply to that bit. I guess I just don't share your perception at all? I didn't call him a nationalist and didn't flame him. I wrote, "The only place to keep Hacker News as a place for things that gratify intellectual curiosity is to keep it free of nationalistic indignation, however justified." This phrasing is deliberately general (i.e. about HN as a whole) and impersonal (e.g. "nationalistic indignation" as a genre). Not only did it not target a person, it was specifically worded not to target a person. I also recognized that the feelings behind these comments are justified, as way of making clear that (a) anyone in the commenter's place would feel the same way, but (b) HN's rules nevertheless require not posting those feelings in a way that constitutes flamebait. People on the other sides of these conflicts also have justified feelings. It's hard to remember this, but civil discourse requires that we remember it.

It's not the case that I singled 0xFFC out for harsh treatment. I was much harsher with the commenter who went on tilt in response, and I posted those replies at the same time (possibly sooner in fact, since I vaguely remember going through the thread bottom-up). Moreover, when he didn't stop, I didn't merely say "if you do this again we will ban you"; I went ahead and did ban him—a far harsher response. So I'm not sure why you feel so strongly that my reaction was unbalanced and inequitable. I certainly make mistakes and am happy to learn when people point them out, but I'm not seeing it here.

I agree with you in one way, though, and it's actually the most important thing. The way I reacted provoked a huge discussion about moderation. Any time that happens, the moderation was just wrong. (That's also why I've erred on the side of posting lots of explanation, despite its verbosity and complete offtopicness.) Therefore I need not to react that way in the future, and I will make adjustments in the hope of not provoking those sorts of objections again.

It's not always easy, though. I took heat from other side in this case too, not so visibly, but actually stronger. However much we don't want to—and we really don't want to—we end up standing in the middle of the firefight when people flame each other about things like this, and people on both sides of the conflict go away thinking we're against them, secretly hate their countries, and are in favor of their enemies. That sucks.