[aDevilInMe]

"The HN guidelines ask you not to post questions like this to the site, but instead to email us"

Is this for the reason that you do not want site criticism on the front page, with lots of people commenting about the policies? Instead the site would rather only one person emailed you about the problems rather than hearing a mass voice of concern?

This is the biggest entry on HN today, yet you have decided to remove it from the front page! I realise that at this moment in time you have not read the thread, but this is one of the issues which was highlighted and one that also pisses me off!

[edanm]

First of all, please kindly don't use language like "pisses me off". This is YC's platform, which it built, maintains and pays for, and works very hard to make good. We are guests here. I don't have a problem with you airing concerns, but I really think it will be more beneficial for you and everyone else to remember that we are guests, and to be civil. Actually, being civil is usually better anyway.

Secondly, regarding your concern - I'm not a mod, but I'll take a stab at why the guidelines are the way they are:

HN, above all else, wants to be a place where hackers find interesting stories and discussions. Meta threads are generally not "interesting", not in the way that HN wants.

But that's not the only problem - the problem with "meta" threads like this are that they are very superficially interesting - after all, they concern one of the few things all of HN has in common - HN. But almost everyone here has ideas of how to improve HN - almost everyone here sometimes has things they would like done different. If every user wrote a post on this, that's all we'd talk about. Moreover, since most users are talking from a position of ignorance compared to the mods, oftentimes what they talk about will simply be wrong without them knowing it.

Therefore, the best solution is exactly what HN asks - email questions directly to them. I've never done so, but from what I understand, they usually answer.

Also, in terms of timing, you couldn't pick a worse time to complain about the moderation - this is literally the time in history that HN has been the most open and straightforward about moderation policies, and they're doing IMO a fantastic job too.

[gravedave]

You're offended by someone being pissed off? I think the problem here is you, not him. He didn't direct insults towards anyone, and there's nothing uncivil about using a colloquialism to express personal feelings. If you can't deal with people being human, maybe you should stay out of discussions you don't need to be a part of.

Also, excuse me but "things they would like done different"? All OP asks for is not to have something he posted replaced with something else, and that's how it normally works already, it's not an "idea", it's a status quo, and it's desirable.

[tptacek]

Nobody on HN has a right to "not have something they posted replaced with something else". Dan said it today, and Paul Graham has said it in the past: you don't own submissions to HN. It's for the same reason that posts can't simultaneously be "Ask HN" and a link to a site --- the submitter of a link doesn't get a special privileged comment to go with it.

The slot you fill when you submit a new story to HN is community property. If you're worried about the outlandishly weird case of having your name attached to something that a mod decided was better than your submission when it actually wasn't, submit with a throwaway account.

None of this is news. The site has always worked this way. What's galling is the reason people are bickering about it now: because the moderator is making an effort to be more transparent about it.

[gravedave]

Why do you have to "own" your submissions for them to be left as-is in the first place? Is the only way to go around here with a stick? Just because they reserve the right to change them doesn't mean it should be done at their own leisure, like "fuck OP, here's what the post should REALLY contain".

[aDevilInMe]

Firstly, I hugely disagree with your comment on civility. This is because "pisses me off" expresses my feelings in a way that just could not be captured using other words. If you knew me, which of course you can not, you would understand it really means something when I swear on the internet. At present I can not think of another time when I have done so.

Secondly I would disagree that the "best solution" is to email them as a single entity. Emailing the powers that be could only be the best course of action (about topics such as this) if somebody organised a mass email campaign. Seeing as the site is a medium for news and communication, I feel having this thread in full view of all eyes may not be the "best" but it is still a good solution.