zlacker

Agreed. But this isn’t just the top-down moderation, no matter how much of demi-god dang is.

My experience is that HN users “moderate” each other, when appropriate, to some degree. I’ve told others they’re over the line and I’ve been told myself, in a respectful manner. This tends to suppress fires early before they become flame wars.

So I think while dang does excellent work, the fact that it’s transparent and most respect that, people voluntarily self-align and help out. Otoh, in places where mods are assholes or automated, people don’t care about the spirit of the rules at all.

>>klabb3+(OP)
dang's biggest contribution is setting the example. You can see it in this very submission—his reactions to pretty severe criticism in the subthread above are universally calm and measured, even when the other party gets quite aggressive. And he's also quick to talk down people who think they're defending him and/or HN but are doing so in an aggressive way.

He's the same way when he's moderating, and I've definitely patterned my own pseudo-moderating comments after what I've seen him do.

>>lolind+a3
I completely agree. His conduct and replies are absolutely top notch. I'm in awe of his commitment.

>>klabb3+(OP)
I think people are able to moderate themselves because dang is enforcing a tone. you pick up the HN tone over here. and that tone puts the necessary boundaries to have a meaningful discussion.

for example I find the requests for proofs quite funny over here. it's never "source?", there's always a couple of words added to them to adjust the tone. most of the time there's no answer, but sometimes there's is a delightful come back with well researched sources, demonstrating the champion was well prepared and the challenger had been trapped :)