[maxbond]

Moderation is the dual of denial of service. Every moderation primitive is a denial of service primitive, and every denial of service primitive is a moderation primitive - what moderation really is is the denial of service actions we believe are prosocial.

If you penalize people for engaging in link-farming SEO, the SEO people who's tricks don't work anymore will go into business doing "negative SEO" for hire or as extortion. When people use DDoS as an act of protest (I don't know if this still happens but it did circa 2010 when the Anonymous hacktivist movement was active), you can view that as similar "community moderation" to flagging posts on HN, but on the IP level. (I am not endorsing DDoS, I am just illustrating the duality. My point is technical and not political.)

Keep this in mind when you write moderation primitives. They will be abused.

[autoexec]

Moderation isn't usually a problem when there are humans in the loop who review that stuff. Google's problem is that they want to offer business services companies will depend on without providing real support for their users. The have so much money they could easily afford to have staff working with customers, investigating fraud, and using sound judgement, but they refuse because it's easier to stuff their pockets with the money they save by screwing people over.