[Chris2048]

> he just states some basic, "Stop doing <value judgement about user's behavior>."

Very often it's "stop breaking the guideline", or "stop participating in flamewars" - so not much to go on. Often the next comment is "which guideline did I break" or "What do you mean by flamewar/why is this a flamewar?" - which goes unanswered.

Other times, users will participate in blatant trolling, or obvious (non subjective) rule breaking and get far more detail/response.

It feels like dang/mods aren't exactly sure of what the moderation rules should be, so simply don't answer difficult questions..

That said, what is the benchmark for moderation? Reddit? The internet standard is so low, HN is great in comparison.