Of course then this becomes an argument about scale, doesn't it? Twitter and Facebook both suffer from problems of racists and issues relating thereof, but do you really, really want HN to be compared to those sites? Do you view HN as having the same issues adapting to scale and being unable to control their userbase? Do you believe Facebook and Twitter to be above criticism because they have little to no other sites they can be compared to?
The sites I'm referring to are more or less microcosms. Larger subreddits, or sites like Tildes, SomethingAwful etc. These sites don't have the traffic of HN, but they deal with similar issues at their own scale. Larger sites can and absolutely should apply ideas learned at smaller scales and try to scale them upwards.
edit: Regardless of my thoughts on the site, I'll stop arguing about it and let things hopefully get back on topic.
The sites I'm referring to are more or less microcosms. Larger subreddits, or sites like Tildes, SomethingAwful etc. These sites don't have the traffic of HN, but they deal with similar issues at their own scale. Larger sites can and absolutely should apply ideas learned at smaller scales and try to scale them upwards.
edit: Regardless of my thoughts on the site, I'll stop arguing about it and let things hopefully get back on topic.