I'm curious about the choice of words "open-source" here. What would having the source available change with respect to this "Tell HN"? Something along the lines of no mods? No voting/flagging? Nothing off-topic?
Community operated and moderated. It's amazing how the entire tech community has come together on a message board run by venture capital. It's not a neutral forum. At the very least, a GNU-friendlier alternative would be appreciated.
I have prior moderating experience and I have been online a long time. My experiences suggest that having paid mods dramatically improves a forum. Volunteer staff cannot be expected to meet the same rigorous standards as paid staff and they never do.
As someone whose moderating experience was unpaid, I can tell you part of the reason for that: We resent having to deal with assholes who make our jobs difficult and don't appreciate us giving our time and energy to the site for free, because we believe in the cause.
No, it is not a neutral forum. There is no such thing.
Also, my honest feeling is "Feel free to start one." That isn't snark, but I assume it would be interpreted as such because you are asking people to start this rather than saying "Hey, guys, I am tired of this and I have started an open source version over at (THIS LINK) and if you are as fed up with HN as I am, hey, here is an alternative."
People who propose the kind of seemingly idealistic suggestions of the sort you are proposing almost never want to roll up their sleeves and do the work -- because, hey, work is hard and no one is paying them and yadda. Which is likely why HN is the place to be for so many people: Because it is well moderated by folks who get paid, because it supports a business agenda and doesn't need ads or the like to pay the bills. The business -- YC -- is plenty successful and can afford to support the forum for its purposes in a way that doesn't unduly impinge on what people can discuss here.
Thanks for the clarification. I encourage you to use the phrase "community operated and moderated" in that case. Open source is overloaded as it is. Conflating community operated with licensing is problematic.
