Strict moderation has managed to make a few subreddits decent to read, and I don't see much resentment there. Usually it's greatly appreciated. It wouldn't work

Strict moderation has managed to make a few subreddits decent to read, and I don't see much resentment there. Usually it's greatly appreciated. It wouldn't work if all subreddits were that way though, I could easily see some sort of resentment building up in that case. Self-policing, in comparison, will always lead to eternal september above some threshold of user churn. That said, HN has weathered growth reasonably well. If nothing else, the median level of discourse on HN has not gotten much worse than it was years ago. But the mean level of discourse has probably gone down. Just my impressions, I have nothing to back this up of course.