No, the political threads are toxic because politics itself is toxic by HN's definition: it makes civil, substantive discussion impossible. That's the raison d'etre of this site, and we ban accounts that don't use the site as intended.
Using a phrase like "these operatives" without evidence is itself abusive. Accusations of astroturfing and shillage are a dime a dozen, and people aren't allowed to sling them around on HN. If you have genuine evidence of abusive behavior, please email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. Invoking it as an argument tactic or a drive-by smear is not legit.
You've already pointed out the abusive behavior by the guy and you're fully aware of these tactics, so why the call for an email?
This stuff happens everyday. And if politics is toxic, then why not go back to the no politics rule permanently? Or if it's so toxic then just make it a free-for-all.
Because there's more than one problem here: (a) a small amount of genuine abuse, and (b) a large amount of users lazily smearing one another, drawing on nothing but their own imagination.
If there's actual abuse going on, obviously we need to know about it. We take such reports seriously, and on rare occasions find something. But I can tell you from long experience that there's almost never any there there—just people getting mad at each other and breaking HN's civility rule in a particularly smug way. This behavior is most common from accounts whose comments are generally unsubstantive.
The changes we're going to make are (a) adding the rule that you can't accuse other users of astroturfing or shilling without evidence—and an opposing opinion is not evidence, and (b) banning users who do it.
Just because some accounts abuse the site doesn't mean that other accounts get to sling uncivil accusations. That's an abuse in its own right and does more damage.
Using a phrase like "these operatives" without evidence is itself abusive. Accusations of astroturfing and shillage are a dime a dozen, and people aren't allowed to sling them around on HN. If you have genuine evidence of abusive behavior, please email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. Invoking it as an argument tactic or a drive-by smear is not legit.