I'm sure many people on HN have tried to understand the business issues behind running a web community. YCombinator has a number of reasons for the existence of Hacker News, but two things are clear to me: it is beautifully moderated and it has been a powerful, positive force over the years.<p>I sometimes disagree with dang's individual actions. He has scolded me and threatened my membership a couple of times. This is either because he has no sense of humor (my version) or because my comments did not meet community standards (the actual reason; I was kidding before and happily defer to his wisdom). By the way I have submitted this using a throwaway account so dang doesn't know my real identity. I don't want him to feel bad if he has to moderate me in the future.<p>I have clear evidence that dang is doing just what he should be doing. I am apparently much further to the right than the average HN reader. Since people just as left as I am right complain about his moderation from time to time, we know he's doing his job just fine because both sides are equally unhappy with his meddling ;)<p>HN as a whole is an incredible resource. I literally could not ask for a better moderator than dang. I would love if someone could answer some basic questions so I could do some back-of-the-napkin calculations for hiring a moderator for a site.<p>How many active participants does HN have? Say, people who have posted in the last year?<p>How many people have read but not posted in the last year?<p>How many comments are posted per day?<p>Is dang the only moderator or are there others?<p>Is moderating a full time job for dang? (Surely it must be!)<p>Does dang have to read every submission? Every comment?<p>Isn't moderating a site like this a job just ripe for burnout? Is there any way to keep an experienced mod while avoiding burnout?<p>Knowing this will help me know if I'd have to hire 1 moderator per 1,000 members, 100,000 members, or what.
sctb is also a moderator.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sctb" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sctb</a>