There is nothing in the editorial policy about hiding posts that are "stupid" or that someone takes offense to.

From what I remember of the comments (and I'd agree that most were stupid) most if not all were at least tangentially related to the topic of the article.

It is not the role of editors to hide posts if they feel like it. It is the role of editors to enforce the editorial policy.

Also, according to the editorial policy (available at indymedia.org.nz/mod/info/display/policy/index.php ), the following steps must be taken:

"Process for hiding posts containing problems requiring discussion:

1. An empowered editor (active member of the editorial collective) identifies a posting as a problem and immediately hides it, appending a comment to the posting explaining why it was hidden.
2. The editor alerts the editorial collective, notifying it that the post was hidden.
3. At least two additional editors must concur with the first editor's judgement, and none express disagreement, or, 24 hours must pass without any editor expressing disagreement, in order for the post to remain hidden. If consensus is not reached, the post is unhidden."

None of these steps have been taken.

Lets face it - a large percentage of comments on Indy are as annoying (if not more so) as the ones that were on this thread - if you want to change the editorial policy to be more stringent, I'd probably support that. But the current mandate that editors hold has been exceeded here, and the comments should be reinstated immediately IMO.