I feel like some people don't understand the gravity of what he did. He edited someone elses comments. What is the point in being part of a community where the website owners may be editing random comments? It undermines the whole thing.
Let me ask a question. If it turned out that Google had started selectively "editing" peoples email coming from Gmail, would you still be fine using Gmail?
There is no gravity. People are overreacting, that's all. Spez simply did what other sites are able to do but never admit if they do or not.
GPG sign everything online if you're concerned about your data changing. Even HN could change your comments if they wanted. What's stopping people? "Trust"?
So the answer to censoring is more censoring, let's nuke an entire community just because I'm on a moral high horse!
Also I fully understand what Spez did and I find it not OK. If you don't agree with what an admin did, you could ask for the respective admin/CEO to resign. The answer should not be to delete a community that you don't own on a whim.
If Google started modifying my emails, I would stop using Gmail and advise my friends not to use Gmail. But I won't ask for Gmail to be killed/deleted just because I don't like it or I don't agree with it.
Let me ask a question. If it turned out that Google had started selectively "editing" peoples email coming from Gmail, would you still be fine using Gmail?