I'm glad to hear that an experienced editor sees HN that way, and also that you see evidence of a repeatable approach. Those are good signs.
As I'm sure you know, it's a more complex problem than just being willing or unwilling to put up with bad behavior. There are costs to addressing it—quite a few, it turns out, no matter what approach one takes.
Our plan is to move HN toward more community self-regulation. Each step we've taken that way—e.g. when we added vouching for dead comments—has worked well. I doubt the community can become completely autonomous (though a mod can dream), but we're pretty sure it can go further in that direction, especially if we do a good job of specifying what kind of site HN is, and isn't, supposed to be.
As I'm sure you know, it's a more complex problem than just being willing or unwilling to put up with bad behavior. There are costs to addressing it—quite a few, it turns out, no matter what approach one takes.
Our plan is to move HN toward more community self-regulation. Each step we've taken that way—e.g. when we added vouching for dead comments—has worked well. I doubt the community can become completely autonomous (though a mod can dream), but we're pretty sure it can go further in that direction, especially if we do a good job of specifying what kind of site HN is, and isn't, supposed to be.