Comment by kstrauser
6 hours ago
Nah. It launched well, but sorely needed a BDFL. Almost without fail, services that delegate moderation duties to users are ruined. Inevitably, well-meaning people form councils and boards, and then those get taken over by people with nothing but time on their hands. It's the same thing that happens with school boards and HOAs: the last people you want running them are the ones that have the time and the drive to actually want to be in charge of them.
How are you going to run a community at scale without delegation? The only alternative is to let the computer do it.
HN does a pretty good job of it. Turns out paid employees seem to be more incentivized to keep people coming back.
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