I’m a moderator of a fairly good sized sub (3M) and bots help flag things early but sometimes it takes nuance to determine if it’s something that needs action, especially if it’s for a very specific community.

There are rules that have been set up through time by mods that facilitate discussion and avoid people karma farming.

Lastly, there are also communities (one of them ours) that host AMAs or other community events and it’s us who approach people to see if they want to interact with the community.

I’m not saying mods are perfect (I myself am annoyed at ones from other subreddits and sometimes disagree with fellow ones) but mods aren’t there just to ban people and remove posts.

What makes HN amazing for me is how people hear moderate discussions and that’s one thing I’m trying to emulate.