Aside from the substance of the discussion:<p>&gt; I cant reply directly as HN has blockedit.<p>Yes, you can reply directly. Beyond a certain depth HN may not show a reply link when you view the whole thread, but you can still directly reply by clicking the direct link to the specific comment (the one that has the &quot;5 minutes ago&quot; or whatever the time interval is), and then the reply box will be shown.<p>I think this is intended to make people think before replying to a very deeply nested comment as a way of curbing unproductive Ping-Pong discussions, but it seems mostly to get people to post lateral replies (that is, replies attached to a comment somewhere upthread from the comment they actually respond to), invariably complaining about the inability to reply directly, which is worse for the flow of discussion than if they just posted direct replies.