HN is not community-driven in the same way that Reddit or 4chan are. I come here for that reason. I want HN moderators to tell people when they're straying from

HN is not community-driven in the same way that Reddit or 4chan are. I come here for that reason. I want HN moderators to tell people when they're straying from what they want HN to be. I wish more discussion-oriented sites were like that. It makes it feel a little more like a moderated mailing list. I usually agree with the moderation, but if I didn't I'd just go elsewhere, and I wouldn't hold it against the moderators here. There's nothing wrong with people preferring more democratic moderation (or none at all), and there's nothing wrong with other people preferring more opinionated and direct moderation. I appreciate sites like Reddit that are way more hands-off, and that try to give the community tools to be more or less self-moderating. But I also appreciate sites like HN which are driven by a (relatively) small number of people who just want to run a particular type of site with a particular type of community and enforce a particular level of discourse. There probably wouldn't even be an HN if this wasn't the case. There's no reason both approaches can't coexist on the Internet, and users can choose the sites with moderation philosophies that best suit them.