TL;DR Moderation on HN is a black box and is scary and not comforting (hence unwelcoming a little bit?) Details: I feel like there's an undercurrent of heavy h

TL;DR Moderation on HN is a black box and is scary and not comforting (hence unwelcoming a little bit?) Details: I feel like there's an undercurrent of heavy handed moderation here. Replies get detached, deleted, and no one would know unless you really looked. PS:I'm not saying these forums aren't vulnerable to abuse. They're and should be moderated (I guess), but make the moderation visible and obvious, is what I'd say. My worry is if and when I step over to the wrong side of the (imaginary) line that the mods have drawn in the sand, my replies or posts here would be doomed, pushed out of existence and visibility. Mods also do appear snappish here based on the few replies that I've read. All of this seems anecdotal. The question did say "feel". I'm not going to bother collecting evidence because don't think this topic would get that much attention (it should though)