Similar memories have been an influence on HN's moderation style. I've mentioned that a few times over the years:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34328146 (Jan 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32725068 (Sept 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28832073 (Oct 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26855767 (April 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19773300 (April 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839842 (June 2016)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10979050 (Jan 2016)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9813527 (July 2015)

- and more generally https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Occasionally I run into posts from the heyday of comp.lang.lisp and it's still astonishing how high-quality the discussion was, before it wasn't.