> This just dropped by -4 in a ten second span (edit: moments after another -4), essentially confirming the suspicion.
If I made a comment along the lines of "I think the HN moderators hire hitmen to kill commenters they don't like," that would probably get downvoted very quickly and very harshly. This would not be proof that the moderators put hits on commenters — it just shows that baseless conspiracy theories are not very popular here.
Indeed, that is one boorish tactic of making a banal, sycophantic comment. The use of a garbage strawman really put it into a higher echelon.
However I stick by my observation. The brain trust behind HN moderation, having moved on from their asinine slowbans and hellbans, have gone to something that they think is trickier. Only it's, again, hilariously naive.
If I made a comment along the lines of "I think the HN moderators hire hitmen to kill commenters they don't like," that would probably get downvoted very quickly and very harshly. This would not be proof that the moderators put hits on commenters — it just shows that baseless conspiracy theories are not very popular here.