While I do agree with this answer, and I'm not terribly interested in deleting the answer in question, I wish there were a little recognition here that the answer in question is not a thoughtful and pertinent analysis relevant to the work, nor adopting any sort of tone neutrality, nor terribly good to begin with. Suppose the question were about The Man in the High Castle. Compare the answer that you gave to one that said "Smith joined the Nazis because he wasn't brainwashed into seeing them as terrorizers of innocents. Also World War II had violence on many sides, many sides."

@Adamant I interpreted this question as seeking a general policy regarding political discussions, not about the specific answer you are referring to (there's already a meta thread about its merits or lack thereof). Skooba seemed to take the same approach in his answer.

@Null That is correct. There was posts that sparked this discussion, but in the end it is about establishing a guideline overall not about any particular answer.

@CreationEdge Excessive commentary underneath which answer? The one on main which started this whole thing, or one of the meta answers?

@CreationEdge The same rules apply for political comments as all other comments: they are fine as long as they attempt to improve the answer (e.g. by criticizing it), and the discussion doesn't go on for too long. Long discussions will be moved to a chat room, and I generally leave a couple of comments from the moved conversation on the post so users have context as to what the chat room is about. I don't think there's any way to resolve such political disagreements without a lot of back and forth.

@CreationEdge As for meta, I generally leave more comments than on main since meta is for discussion anyway. I deleted some comments on Rand's meta answer and left most of them. I've been criticized in the past for deleting too many meta comments. There's no pleasing everyone. shrug

@CreationEdge The objective of the comment discussion isn't necessarily to sway someone's political opinion. It may be to fix assumptions in the answer (made due to the answerer's political beliefs or what the answerer knows -- or doesn't know -- about the SFF work in question). If that's the case then I see nothing wrong with such comment discussions.

@Null hm. So discussing the victims of the third reich and whether they were innocent is on topic in certain cases? Could i find myself writing an answer defending Anne Frank's innocence or of other victims on SFF? Wouldn't that be too personal? There are probably aren't that many muggleborns here, but there may be holocaust survivors. In my family there were such victims.

@Morri I'm not sure I understand your question. I don't see how it would be controversial to defend the innocence of Holocaust victims.

@Null the question is, is it on topic here? In light of the answer " ...As the wizarding world wasn't brainwashed by Muggle political propaganda, Dumbledore didn't see Hitler as an absolute evil who terrorize innocents. " a mod wrote that it's a legitimate answer, that's why i am askin'

@Morri As I said in my answer, it is on-topic if it is necessary for the analysis of a SFF work.

@Null and you mods think it's wise? Users may use it to promote racist ideology, anti-lgbt sentiments. .. methinks it's nicer to discuss the destruction of aldebaran than an actual genocide. Would cause SFF to become a second politics.SE. but if you guys think it'll spice up the stack and that's what we need, lets give it a try...

@Morri Users are not permitted to promote racist ideology, etc. as that violates the Be Nice policy. However, explaining the motivations, beliefs, etc. of a character or author of a SFF work who may be racist, etc. does not constitute promoting said ideology. The answer that started all this was claiming that Dumbledore did not intervene in WWII because, among other reasons, he thought the Allies were just as evil as the Axis. That may or may not be correct about Dumbledore and the answerer may or may not actually believe that, but it is an attempt to answer the question.

@Null ok, armchair politics it is then... maybe i'd become spoilt by the general good manners of SFF till now. But we mustn't forget, we're part of the interwebz, with all the very constructive political and religious debate :)

@Null - Let's be clear. The implication of a statement in the question is that it's "brainwashing" by "propaganda" that makes people see Hitler as a "terrorizer of innocents." That's not a statement of Dumbledore's opinion, accurate or otherwise - that's what the poster actually thinks. It's not just moral equivalence between Nazis and other regimes - it's straight-up untruths about the Holocaust. It's thinly disguised political stumping, and for an unpleasant view at that. I actually don't want it deleted, but do we really need to tip-toe around what it says?

This is the same user who claimed Captain America was gay because [insert dubious and slightly creepy argument here]. They've got a long history of posts that seem designed to intentionally make unpleasant statements - trolling, in other words. This is just the next iteration.

@Adamant - And let's not forget the time they changed their avatar to a swastika and insisted that the SS in their name related to the Nazi party.

@Adamant As I explained in my response to your first comment, I am treating this question as a general policy question, not about the specifics of a particular post. If you want to discuss the specifics of the post that started this please do so in the meta thread or one of the chatrooms (e.g. this one) for it.

And as for the user in question, his history is irrelevant. Policy is to vote for the post, not the user.

If the purpose was to troll then the community took the bait by repeatedly deleting it.

If everyone had just downvoted and moved on there would've been much less drama over it.

@Null Indeed (not that the post itself is good).

But if users continually post troll questions, offensive content, amd so forth, sometimes action is taken against them.