zlacker

I highly doubt "2 moderators" would be able to do anything if half of the community was composed of trolls. The fact that trolls are very few in the first place, and not welcome by other members who flag them and downvote them to hell, make it possible for it to work even with a low level of moderation.

>>ekianj+(OP)
Making trolling less visible / viable practice is the work of moderators.

Enough HN members are happy to feed the trolls (even if unwittingly) and encourage more without removing them.

>>duxup+O1
> Making trolling less visible / viable practice is the work of moderators.

Downvoting, flagging works even when the mods are not around. I am pretty sure that a comment flagged too many times is greyed out and almost invisible (and that happens without mods).

Again, if we are to believe there are only 2 full time moderators on HN for the amount of comments going every single minute, it's virtually impossible to rely on mods alone for proper discussions: simple maths.

>>ekianj+(OP)
1 moderator is infinitely better than 0.

I run a group of 20,000+ people, and if I didn't set the tone on what the group is about, regularly, the value of it would drop to nothing.

I love my community. But I absolutely recognize the role I play in keeping it a nice place to visit.