The most important thing for keeping HN useful is not making sure that the front page is a pristine pond of Erlang essays, Rails optimization tips, and innovative ways to monetize iPod apps. (Though I prefer a frontpage which is, oh, about 80%+ that kind of stuff relative to generic intellectual curiosity articles.)
The most important thing is that the comments are kept useful by constant vigilance on the part of the community. Did anyone see the reddit t-shirt thread yesterday? That sort of thing needs to remain unthinkable here. Not just the sophomoric sexualization and laughter-excuses-any-misconduct, but the parts of Internet culture which aren't relevant to programming/business/etc. (I like lolcats, anime, and politics myself -- just not here.)
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The most important thing for keeping HN useful is not making sure that the front page is a pristine pond of Erlang essays, Rails optimization tips, and innovative ways to monetize iPod apps. (Though I prefer a frontpage which is, oh, about 80%+ that kind of stuff relative to generic intellectual curiosity articles.)
The most important thing is that the comments are kept useful by constant vigilance on the part of the community. Did anyone see the reddit t-shirt thread yesterday? That sort of thing needs to remain unthinkable here. Not just the sophomoric sexualization and laughter-excuses-any-misconduct, but the parts of Internet culture which aren't relevant to programming/business/etc. (I like lolcats, anime, and politics myself -- just not here.)