FWIW, there's a long-standing bias here against "meta" discussion. Arguably, talking about HN isn't really "on topic" on HN. Obviously some such "meta" discussion still happens (I mean, here we are, right?) but a lot of people seem to still believe in discouraging it. Not sure how dang and the other mods feel about that point.

In this case I think that Dang's writing should be more or less required reading, it is good enough to be added to the guidelines and it is an eye-opening piece as to what good moderation looks like from the other side.