The "Gross." remark (Edit: now removed) at the end was unnecessary, but the bulk of the comment seems like a pretty legitimate question to me.
It's telling that I see far worse HN comments on a daily basis that don't warrant a finger-wagging condemnation from you.
It's telling of the fact that we don't see most, or even 10%, of what gets posted here. There's far too much to read.
If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
I don't expect you to read everything, but your choice of what to call out is still telling. If you truly think this is the sort of comment that needs direct intervention, I'd politely suggest you should set aside 2-3 hours per week to read comments on /new posts.
To be clear: I do not have the time or energy to back this up statistically, but my experience is that you are substantially more likely to choose to get involved in threads/comments that challenge startup culture than you are in threads/comments that embrace bigotry, conspiracy theories, and other genuinely appalling content.
Edit: To elaborate a bit and put a final touch on this before I call it a night, the problem isn't that I see you condemning comments like this; it's that I rarely-to-never see you condemning substantially worse comments. It seems to communicate a clear choice to allow repugnant behavior as long as it doesn't criticize startup culture/founder worship.
> I do not have the time or energy to back this up statistically
Please don't portray this as a case of being asked for an unreasonable level of effort. You've provided no examples or evidence at all.
As the other moderator, I do spend at least that number of hours each week looking at or looking for substantially worse comments than that, and usually they’re from troll accounts that we insta-ban without commenting about it.
As for the topics in which we post moderation replies: anyone can easily see in our feeds that we post plenty of similar comments in non-startup-related threads every week. Often I barely even know what the topic of the thread is, because I’m working through lists of flagged and killed comments, not discussion threads. This is why we ask people to flag comments they think break the guidelines.
I don’t see you flagging very often at all. I mean that not as a complaint; nobody is obliged to flag things. But if you did, it would be the simplest and most convincing way of building a case to prove that this bias and inadequate moderation exists.