Certainly. The front page was sometimes an issue, but it never got to be a big problem. The comments, though... Those were something special. Pg's in particul

Certainly. The front page was sometimes an issue, but it never got to be a big problem. The comments, though... Those were something special. Pg's in particular. C.f. today vs https://web.archive.org/web/20080506031933/http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2987 https://web.archive.org/web/20080506031933/http://news.ycomb... I remember precisely when the time period ended, because it was so disappointing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2604359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2604359 What was it about the early comments that were so good? The commenters were happy, for one. Most of life was pretty dull, and it felt like HN was where people came to life. There was less drama; people were less likely to type out a comment due to anger or frustration. They were also stronger. People felt like they could influence the world, so they didn't spend a lot of time talking about how to do that, or how the world should be. There was more discussion about intellectual pursuits, or just interesting observations about the world. The comment threads nowadays are pushy. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10748834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10748834 This is the opposite of how it felt in the early days, I think. People were more inquisitive, so they were less aggressive. There is certainly a component of rose-tinted glasses here, though. Most of my feelings are because I was still pretty young. It was almost a decade ago.