[trekker7]

As opposed to caring about the specifics like fixing punctuation, I think that critics don't like the authority (and potential for abuse) implied by administrators messing with user submitted text, no matter in how trivial a way.

At some point users have to decide if they're willing to sacrifice a purely democratic community if it means an increase in quality. Is the point of a social news site to make a political statement, or is it find cool stuff to read?

Edit: Maybe the admins should just be 100% transparent about everything they do; document their actions in a FAQ.

[rms]

Transparency makes this a non-issue. Admin actions like editing titles should automatically show up on a log page.

[pg]

You're probably right. No one complains when whole submissions are deleted as spams, presumably because you can see them if you want by turning on showdead in your profile. So maybe I'll add something to preserve original submission titles.

[jmzachary]

"Authority (and potential for abuse) implied"? Well, I guess different things upset different types of people. Why does this have to be "democratic community"? Is the "democratic community" paying the bills for the site? I'm not a PG sycophant, but I come to the defense of the site maintainers. I would rather read a sanitized and on-target news.ycombinator site than a mob-rulz reddit site. But ultimately, they serve two different purposes.

[staunch]

When it comes to online forums I have no hesitation in giving up "full democracy". A benevolent dictator and his helpers is a great solution to maintaining a quality community. The way they go about doing it will simply filter out those who don't like their style. Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone is willing to deal with Linus Torvalds and his helpers either. Transparency here is optional but preferred.