Mods answering questions is a form of transparency. I get that you might not believe us, but you could just as easily disbelieve any other form of transparency.

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.