This is an initiative I want to support, but after reading both stories - you're making the mistake of having a good-faith argument with bad faith actors, comparing approaches as if you are chasing the same objective from different principles.
DOGE is not trying to find efficiency. DOGE is trying to funnel money from the people to the powerful. DOGE is actively part of a project to destroy the government. DOGE does not give a damn.
I don't think they are trying to have a good-faith argument with DOGE -- I think they are trying to appeal to the hopefully-still-extant, sane, slight majority of Americans.
Why this illusion, and how, you may ask? I can tell you why and how! It's because people are far more likely to notice the data points they dislike (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Not only that, but the dislikeables make a stronger impression when you do notice them. This is why people with strong feelings on a topic always feel like the site is going to the dogs—they're unintentionally blotting out the other data.
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Edit: here are more recent examples in case helpful (what can I say, it's a hobby)
I've got just as many pointing the other way, of course, but the valuable examples point opposite to the illusion. That is, if I were replying to one of these (^^^^) commenters, I'd point them to your post instead!
It's not an illusion. I've been on HN across various accounts for over a decade. There is a hard liberal-progressive tilt to comments and post flagging which has been documented and remarked upon by others on sites where such comments don't get flagged and removed. Your own bias is also quite obvious, as is that of pg, who is now known on Twitter as a block-happy liberal lolcow. But thanks for posting all that, I'm glad Bolsheviks seething at Mensheviks haven't escaped your attention.
I wouldn't call this documentation in the sense that I thought you meant the word.
These are examples of users complaining about HN in the way many users always complain about HN. You'll find countless such comments making general claims about how the site is "all X" or "has become Y" or "never allows any Z".
The problem is that these perceptions are not reliable—people base them on datapoints that they happen to notice because they dislike them so much [1], and from there they jump to general conclusions.
I'm willing to believe you mean what you say and are posting in good faith, but please read this comment and others on its link and tell me with a straight face there's no strong lib-left bias in HN's community moderation:
You and others on the right, as a group in 2025, only argue for freedom of speech when it suits you. Yes, the left does this too, and it's just as despicable.
I wouldn't bother engaging with this kind of comment. Hackernews is not the place for back and forth personal slinging. Just flag it and move on, we should try to keep things civil.
DOGE is not trying to find efficiency. DOGE is trying to funnel money from the people to the powerful. DOGE is actively part of a project to destroy the government. DOGE does not give a damn.