Perhaps we all have a natural unconscious bias against being "edited" ("you're not in control of me [or the OP]!!"). But seeing the edits over time in the open really makes one appreciate the moderation work. Maybe it's worth making this more official somehow (e.g., adding a footnote in the submission page or to the FAQ) - because like you say, it must surely minimize off-topic discussions as well.
Anyway, thanks for your work!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20429573
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
The idea of marking every single edit, or publishing a complete moderation log, feels like asking for trouble. I fear that it would lead to more objections of the litigious, bureaucratic, meta type. Even though it's a tiny minority of users who make such objections, they have a lot of energy for it and there are many more of them than us. That kind of thing could quickly burn us out, like an unintended DoS attack. On the other hand, maybe it would just work fine; it's hard to know.
Also, I'm skeptical that it would create more confidence in the site, because the users who want to feel that way basically already do, and the ones who don't probably wouldn't be persuaded by more data. There's always going to be something that's not included, or the suspicion that there is.
Because of this, the way we address concerns is to answer people's individual questions, here and by email. We're happy to do that, and there basically isn't anything we aren't willing to explain. That's by design. We try never to do anything that isn't defensible to the community. Even when there are genuine secrets that can't be spelled out, like how the anti-abuse software works, we can say what they are at a high level and why a secret is needed. Those cases are rare.