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> Some things are encouraged, eg being racist towards Chinese
I've poured countless hours into urging HN commenters to be more tolerant on China-related topics (as on all topics, but China-related ones have been common) and moderating and/or banning the users who won't. Here's a list that I put together for another user last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod. No one could read that history with even a glimmer of fair-mindedness and conclude that "racism towards Chinese" is "encouraged" by HN mods or anyone else at YC.
I've even had the honor of being "accused" (as if this would somehow be a bad thing) of being Chinese myself, because of how we moderate HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22608635). The funny thing is how similar that groundless accusation was to the groundless accusation you posted here. People simply make these claims up based on a small number (perhaps as small as 1, but we can be generous and say 2 or 3) data points they randomly run across and then misinterpret according to their pre-existing views. People with pro-XYZ feelings do this and conclude that the mods are anti-XYZ. People with anti-XYZ feelings do it and conclude that we're pro-XYZ. It's just projection, and works the same way in both cases. (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
But there's no transparency, so there's no reason to assume it's true and not just the usual corporate PR.
In my experience, the bulk of the community is willing to believe that we tell the truth about HN moderation, if only because it would be stupid and reckless not to. Literally the only value HN has to YC is the good will of the community. To jeopardize that for a little more moderation convenience, or whatever, would be a colossally dumb trade.
Believe it or not, our actual goal is never to do anything that isn't defensible to the community, such that if (heaven forbid) the entire HN dataset were ever published, there would be nothing inconsistent with what we've told the community over the years.
Why then, you or someone may ask, not just publish all the data? Two reasons: (1) we need to protect users; and (2) it would make it impossible to run the site.
Indeed.
> if only because it would be stupid and reckless not to
Not really, even if it was somehow proven.
> the only value HN has to YC is the good will of the community.
That's called a brand, and other brands do fine despite lying to their customers. In fact it's often considered a core part of business.
Posted in the interest of providing you the transparency you desire.