Secondly, I (and I believe a number of others), whilst appreciating all the efforts that you guys are making to keep HN a great place to be, frequently feel baffled, hurt or just insulted by the way that moderation is applied.

I believe that the main reason for that is not actually bad moderation, but lack of transparency in the moderation. When you don't know why the article you just submitted dropped off the front page suddenly, you tend to assume the worst (whatever "the worst" might be contextually).

So here is a simple plea: please, please, please, make an effort to make the moderation more transparent. This will inexorably reduce and perhaps even eventually eliminate all perceptions and claims of foul play, and help keep HN a healthy place.

Transparency is such a fundamental, almost universal startup value. Surely it should be an HN value too.

Those who hide behind secrecy and refuse to explain their actions do so at the expense of trust. Be on the right side of this debate, please, please, please.