Oh yes, but the question is how best to do that. The answer is that we can maximize HN's value for YC simply by making the site as good as possible, because that's what makes the community as happy as possible, and that's what has value. I've written about this many times in case you or anyone want to read more: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
Trying to make HN as good as possible has many aspects, but one of them is the attempt to keep discussions at least a little more substantive than the level they would normally degenerate to without effort, and that means avoiding flamewar comments, fulmination, etc., as described in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Trying to make HN as good as possible has many aspects, but one of them is the attempt to keep discussions at least a little more substantive than the level they would normally degenerate to without effort, and that means avoiding flamewar comments, fulmination, etc., as described in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.