Instead of banning and charging,HN could double down on trust signal,like device reputation,posting velocity limits,and stronger weighting of upvotes from long standing accounts.
Users will get threatened and scolded for getting mildly confrontational on a tech topic, but plenty of user can flamebait endlessly in political threads unimpeded.
If you're asking for something humanly impossible, remember that there are only 2 of us.
job 2
flagged 204
dead 336
story 1664
delayed 687
comment 12312
That is approximately 513 comments each hour or 8.55 each minute.Not humanly possible for two moderators to view and make judgement on even a small fraction of these comments.