Do you have showdead on? There is definite moderation going on, but a lot of it is collectively imposed (down votes, flagging). But, if you have your HN account set to show dead posts, you’ll see that even with this demographic there are still a good number of low quality posts.
I read with showdead on. I feel like people don't get modded for opinions here. Usually if the comments are dead it's because something is perceived as ad hominem, hostile, aggressive, violent, etc. It's usually the tone that gets them modded out and the content of the message, and a polite version of the same statement would stand.
There are outliers of course, but that's the general vibe.
> I feel like people don't get modded for opinions here.
Agreed. That's why I used the term "low quality". The comments that get downvoted or flagged are usually either blatant spam/trolling or rude. If someone makes a quality argument, regardless of the opinion, it generally sticks around. I'll even up-vote comments I disagree with, if the author is making a good-faith effort. Not everyone does that, but enough people do and do so often enough that it helps to keep a complete hive-mind at bay (about most topics...).
But, I think that it's that simple level of moderation (which, I consider to still be moderation) that helps to keep discourse around here civil and interesting...
Yes, there are some threads that start where you just know nothing good will come from it, and in those cases we do see some admin moderation (hi @dang!). But, even then, I think the idea is that when discussing some topics, the thread will invariably end up going sideways. Those are the topics that end to get immediately flagged. And that's okay with me, because who has time for that, when we have so many other, more interesting things to argue (civilly) about?
