As a long time user, I think the mods are mostly concerned about stopping flamewars and moderating obviously 'un-HNish' content, but a lot of what they do is about fostering the community.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30630915 and actually most of dang's comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang
Aren't the guidelines there to keep the community "HACKER news"? Focus on tech?
If anything goes, well, so anything goes. Nothing should be moderated. But that's not the case. Things are moderated - but with no consistency.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.
If you don't like it, flag it. But if you look at the front page, it's all mainly tech-related so it's working fine.
So that the community has a touchstone.
But they are guidelines, not laws.
> Things are moderated - but with no consistency.
It's a big job, so it isn't done perfectly. But I'm sure they'd love to hear about specific instances of moderation that are or seem inconsistent.
But note that the moderation isn't all done by the moderators; the community moderates too.
I have 2 points worth considering in this case:
1. If something hits the front page, shouldn't it immediately be moderated? As it has more visibility?
2. About the community moderating itself - that's a risk of populism and echo-chamber. By definition, HN works by popular vote. Letting the community decide to overcome guidelines by popular vote is what can lead to community to a dark populism point.