> > I don’t think you’d observe anything different if it were violated.

> If the mods were in the practice of moderating like this, yes, it would almost certainly be noticed by someone whose post/comment got deleted.

“You” in the original was referring to avaer specifically, not the generic “you.” They were the ones making the observation on little to no data.

> HN, like every other community on the Internet, relies on trust between the users and mods.

This is exactly my point. One must trust (or more precisely have faith in) them, because claims like the one up-thread are impossible to verify.