What was intended is one thing. What resulted is that I got the message that effort put out by me, that I thought was appreciated due to upvotes, is not what is actually desired there. So why bother?
It was not the moderation itself. It was the discussion on meta that convinced me that what I was interested was so far from the norms that were going to be enforced that there was no point in being present.
As for trying to "help us figure out how to do that" - there could be nothing farther from my interests. As I said in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4197385 I've never enjoyed being around the kind of people who enjoy debating and enforce rules for what is worthy for their community.
But if you should manage to change the culture, maybe it will show up in a story on Hacker New. Then I might give it another try. But not now.
I'd strike "almost" and "online" from this sentence.
Being part of community always means compromise. Only hermits win all their arguments. But most of us have decided that the benefits of community outweigh the cost.