[uberman]

> as for the audits, it would allow HN to get an independent opinion in a way that doesn’t result in data they normally withhold from being public.

While I see obtaining feedback on user behavior and satisfaction valuable, I'm still unsure of how a public audit would benefit HN. It might already be the case that HN conducts private audits and we never know.

I don't really feel that HN has a community or reputation problem in the way that I feel Stack Overflow does so without understanding what you see as the motivation for a public review, I'm not sure what HN or the community would get out of the results.

One thing I would say is that I personally think "shadow bans" are a little petty. I don't agree with the idea of making the site artificially slow and making participation "seem" to work when it does not. That said, I accept that this is the way HN has chosen to work.