HN is more heavily moderated than all the sites people complain about on here. If you browse the front page you’ll frequently find titles which make no sense at all because they’re stripped of the adjective which meant anything.

If you browse any of it chronologically with showdead you'll find tons of completely innocent stuff moderated out from ever showing up before it would’ve ever been visible, quite often on first post for no apparent reason.

Unlike other communities where excess moderation is a concern (a frequent discussion here), you can’t object to a decision publicly. I’m knowingly flouting the abstract version of that fact because I think it objectively contributes to the discussion. But I have every reason to believe even this is going too far.

For sure it’s very carefully moderated, dang works very hard to keep conversations civil and away from flaming, especially around politics. “Heavy” has some negative connotations though. I think the moderation is appropriate.

Yes, perhaps that was a bit strong of a word. On a related note, a good opportunity to repost this article for those that hadn't seen it:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30374040

Dang tends to be fair in his assessments. The first and last time he called me out he made it clear that I ran afoul of the terms and that I should go read them again if I had not. I stopped posting and went and read them. Like another poster said above this is a place where people get chances and when those are given even multiple times to the same person before getting "heavy" there is a high likelihood that people can turn around for the better and permanently. This is now the only place I come due to it being laid out by dang in the way that he did and my active decision to take the advice and become a better poster. There are a lot of very intelligent people here and sometimes I am in awe with the breadth of knowledge that is shared in the comments. I agree that the moderation has been appropriate and effective at that. Things are changing for the positive in my life all around thanks to that reminder and my choice to be a better person because of it.

The moderation is quiet but very firm. For example, I can't post more than like 8 comments per day without getting blocked by rate-limit errors because dang has decided I get in too many flamewars.

This is actually rather clever. It's the internet equivalent of having a buddy pull you back in a brawl, as opposed to kicking you out.

I think it is like 5 comments in the same hour and then you have to observe for the next 3 hours (or something like that, I don’t know exactly).

I love this feature. I’m of a personality which really easily gets baited into flamewars (which is against the guidelines). Being forced to stop after 5 posts forces me into a cooldown period where I can reflect on my behavior. When the shutdown is over I will probably be demotivated enough to continue this recklessness and the probability of me being yelled at by dang goes down with it.

If I have something important to say, it can wait a couple of hours.

I posted something that got traction and they changed the title considerably and also changed the URL. So yes, they definitely moderate lol.

Because probably dang and company tries to nip the bud when the link is posted. Since that most that pass that filter are relatively uncontroversial (they're things that interests some and silently ignored by others), they only need to actively monitor those with inherently high-level controversy (like partisan politics).

Between actual moderation and community moderation, yes. The way moderation works on HN is somewhat hidden though: dead comments will disappear, post titles and such are edited with no (publicly visible anyway) history, etc.

Inspired by Stalin, I imagine. I'm nervous to say 'it works', since we don't know really know what's being suppressed or changed.

more heavily moderated than the evil non free speech places