Jeff’s 2009 argument against HN is a theoretical one, and IMO wrong. He points at a system that works well (HN), and says it “gets it wrong,” for made-up and u

Jeff’s 2009 argument against HN is a theoretical one, and IMO wrong. He points at a system that works well (HN), and says it “gets it wrong,” for made-up and unproven reasons. Paul’s point about not being Reddit, I think, is you need good moderation, and you need to be willing to block and ban. Despite this, Jeff assumes HN limits downvoting in order to not hurt people’s feelings or something, which is a total straw man or non sequitur. From my armchair, I gather that good communities require good moderation, so if you are trying to scale moderation, that’s your work right there, and a downvoting mechanism doesn’t take the place of that. Ideally mods are people who have organically earned trust and power or are known and trusted by other mods or leaders. Karma scores alone don’t cut it. The mods can use tools to be more efficient and not require an army. If you are running a site that relies on mods, you need a good relationship with your mods and to give them good tools and guidelines.