That is a risk we care about. But most people who make such claims turn out, when you look at the specific examples they come up with, mostly to want HN to be moderated to support their own side and penalize the other. Not intentionally, of course, but when you unpack what most people call fair vs. biased, that's what it amounts to. There are exceptions, but disappointingly few.

Most people have a tendency to see commenters we disagree with as disingenuous, the more so the more we disagree. This distorts perceptions. In my experience moderating HN, disingenuous trolls exist, but are less common than users misclassifying each other as such.

So while we're quite willing to moderate and ban accounts that abuse HN in the way you describe—and indeed have done so—we need specific links to evaluate. Otherwise the null hypothesis has to win.

You don't want to discuss it in public? Fine. Email them to dang. (His address is in his profile.)

And dang only lets toxic people and their posts remain for a little while. At some point, he kills their account. (His threshold may be higher than you'd like, but he does do it.)