On: If you're really upset about having topics you per...

[Scriptor]

HN is still supposed to have a fairly narrow range of topics. With the userbase growing so quickly, a lot of people may not read the guidelines and the content could start spilling into subjects not really meant for HN. In that case, I think just educating people about what should and probably shouldn't be here isn't bad.

[groaner → Scriptor]

Do I hear a call for the Erlang defense mechanism to be activated?

[Semiapies → groaner]

Or maybe offer folks who spam the site with partisan politics, profiles of "dating tricks" classes, and ad pitches a script that will redirect them randomly to Reddit or Facebook.

[keefe → Scriptor]

People should be able to do whatever they are able to do. If it's supposed to have a fairly narrow range of topics, use the voting system to achieve that.

[endtime → keefe]

The problem is that HN is not evolutionarily stable. We are susceptible to large numbers of new users upvoting each other's undesirable content.

[Semiapies → keefe]

If we could down-vote entries, that might be more reasonable. As it is, we can only flag.