"Less" doesn't mean "we don't moderate at all"—that would be too big a loophole. "Less" means "do what we normally would, but not as much". That way we can keep the front page reasonably close to the site mandate while still having a consistent approach to conflicts of interest.
For example, if a story is the kind of thing we'd normally downweight off the front page (e.g. because it's a typical opinion piece or drama that isn't intellectually interesting), then "do what we normally would, only less" might mean that the article ends up halfway down the frontpage, whereas normally we'd downrank it off the frontpage altogether.
This approach goes back to the first morning that pg was showing me how he moderated HN and it was literally the first thing he said to me, before I had a chance to grab a chair. He kind of barked it actually - 'whatever you do, don't do that!'
10 years later, it has held up well: it's a simple rule, easy to be both transparent and consistent about, that addresses one of the hardest aspects of running a site like HN. It doesn't work perfectly (nothing on HN can work perfectly, for the simple reason that different segments of the community want different things) but I find it hard to imagine a better tradeoff.
This doesn't stop people from jumping to inaccurate conclusions (such as "HN mods suppress bad stories about YC" when in fact we do the opposite), but it does mean we can answer questions in good conscience, which is vital not only to community goodwill but also our own morale.
"Less" doesn't mean "we don't moderate at all"—that would be too big a loophole. "Less" means "do what we normally would, but not as much". That way we can keep the front page reasonably close to the site mandate while still having a consistent approach to conflicts of interest.
For example, if a story is the kind of thing we'd normally downweight off the front page (e.g. because it's a typical opinion piece or drama that isn't intellectually interesting), then "do what we normally would, only less" might mean that the article ends up halfway down the frontpage, whereas normally we'd downrank it off the frontpage altogether.
This approach goes back to the first morning that pg was showing me how he moderated HN and it was literally the first thing he said to me, before I had a chance to grab a chair. He kind of barked it actually - 'whatever you do, don't do that!'
10 years later, it has held up well: it's a simple rule, easy to be both transparent and consistent about, that addresses one of the hardest aspects of running a site like HN. It doesn't work perfectly (nothing on HN can work perfectly, for the simple reason that different segments of the community want different things) but I find it hard to imagine a better tradeoff.
This doesn't stop people from jumping to inaccurate conclusions (such as "HN mods suppress bad stories about YC" when in fact we do the opposite), but it does mean we can answer questions in good conscience, which is vital not only to community goodwill but also our own morale.