Of course, the community is no more immune than any other regarding group think or rough edges. But on the whole, I've found the level of discourse to impressively high quality over time, and I've been posting and reading here on one account or another for over a decade. It's not just the level of discourse that is impressive, but its prolonged longevity. I think it can only have occurred from a very thoughtful approach to moderation; something I immediately miss when I step into other less curated forums such as Reddit and Twitter, where I can find the interesting content in the discourse, but laden with significantly more noise and significantly less thoughtfulness.
Thanks dang!
Not the spirit of the 'community', the spirit of the company. The community didn't set the guidelines. The company did. It's a private company so it's their right. Also, what you experienced is a form of social/behaviorial engineering. It's what happens in cults, when the leader admonishes a follower for hurting the group, collective or community by breaking the group's rules. Of course the group doesn't make any rules, the leader does. The stubborn or independent minded tend to fight against leader and get banned. But most people are docile, blame themselves and rejoin the cult becoming even more fanatic than the leader.
> Thanks dang!
They even come to love the dear leader.
> something I immediately miss when I step into other less curated forums such as Reddit and Twitter
It isn't less curated. It's even more curated using the same dark arts and patterns of social engineering. It's just that reddit and twitter have many more users. If this 'community' grew to the size of reddit and twitter, it would be a much different place.
Edit: If you ever wonder if social engineering works, read the comments in this post. Nothing 'hacker' about it.
The spirit of the company aligns with most people's basic ethics and morality. When that's the case, having an exemplary moderator just reemphasizes the basic ethics that most people already believe: "I should treat others with respect, and attribute any unintended harm with ignorance rather than malice". Sure, we don't all believe that. But most people think that at the very minimum, it's good to treat other people well.
The difference with a cult is apparent looking at the definition. Google gives me this:
* a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
* a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.
You could argue there's a weird veneration of dang, which I do find kind of odd, but most people wouldn't consider "treat others with respect" as strange or sinister.
I’ve managed a (small) community myself, back in the day. Dang is no superhuman, but managing the cats’ bag HN is, with so few terrible events and so many interesting discussions is impressive. The community is more or less self-selected; you have to be in circles where HN is known, and you have to appreciate a text-only website with only links and opinionated discussions. Still, the fact that it works at all is great, and this is due in no small part to the moderation (not only dang, but he’s the most visible). From that perspective, some degree of admiration is not surprising or odd.