That's not a true statement about HN. Less than 10% of the community is in SV—it's all over the world and has tons of different "very specific parts of wider society". That's one reason why people argue so much about this stuff. If you think the HN community is SV-friendly or even startup-friendly, it may surprise you that many people in those communities feel like it's exactly the other way around.
I wrote "HN is by and of a very specific part of wider society". (I can see how "by" could be interpreted to mean the community, but I meant the authors/operators.) Are there any poor people who work on or for YC or HN? Genuinely curious; I assume that YC's staff and most everyone involved in maintaining and running both this site and YC in general is relatively prosperous, at least compared to the median in the US.
I'm sure that a website of this level of traffic receives all manner of visitors and participants, but I was specifically referring to the people who created and run it, and set the rules and general expectations of tone/topic on it. (I'm not calling you authoritarian, just "of SV" and not-poor.)
[edit: Also maybe I'm wrong and that the ratio of participants vs authors/operators is so vast that the operators play no part in setting the tone beyond the rules (and of course your hard work), in which case my conclusion should be dismissed and the question about why it seems to skew authoritarian should be reopened.]
There's a fallacy in your question if you think that any of us who work on HN determine anything about what comments show up here. That's a function of the community and is way beyond our control. Literally anyone can make an account and comment.
Thank you dang for this statistics. No wonder people find these SV extreme ideas weird and even weirder when they try to blame it on 'russian bots' etc. So deep in bubble that they can even grasp the idea what world is out there outside of these SV local ideas.
