I wasn't even criticizing moderation, because I'm not sure what I could add there because it's your employment to manage this stupidity, but you sure showed up

I wasn't even criticizing moderation, because I'm not sure what I could add there because it's your employment to manage this stupidity, but you sure showed up fast assuming I was. Is it really like that now? Nobody can speak objectively about how this site works and point out an incontrovertible fact without you taking it personally and trying to rally a bunch of usernames you've never met to believe you? I am wary of entering this sort of meta-discussion and usually I would not, but given the slightly unusual topic today, I feel obliged to defend dang here. I have been a participant in HN and various other online forums for a long time. The moderation here, or at least its visible effects, has consistently been handled better than almost any other forum I can think of. That is due in no small part to the calm and incremental approach dang typically takes when someone in a discussion is making unconstructive comments or lowering the tone. One of the original questions in this discussion was about what makes a healthy forum. I don't really know what "healthy" means in this context, but I have found that dedicated moderators with a soft touch are something I associate with a lot of the most useful and enjoyable forums I'm familiar with, social media or otherwise. If generally constructive commenters occasionally drift towards incivility, as many of us sometimes do if we have strong feelings on a subject being discussed, I would prefer to see a gentle push to keep the standards of discussion up, rather than see the admins wielding the ban hammer at the slightest opportunity. That said, I also appreciate the admins of a forum wielding that ban hammer if someone is persistently making comments that are unpleasant and contribute little value to the discussion. Obviously I don't know what if anything happens invisibly here, but the visible part of HN has consistently tracked closer to those two ideals than most of the other online forums I know over many years.