I agree and disagree. You are right in that the people shape the discussion, but saying that the current aggregators have it right because of thus is more like

I agree and disagree. You are right in that the people shape the discussion, but saying that the current aggregators have it right because of thus is more like complacency: they can definitely be better. Looking back at how discussion systems evolved over the years, it's easy to see that small steps have been taken to improve the user experience be enforcing an overall higher quality of content. Since users shape the community, you have two choices in dealing with an evolving site: keep your initial vision by implementing rules and potentially alienating certain user groups; or letting your site adapt to the users. Both are valid approaches. Slashdot takes the former, because it has moderators, and digg takes the latter, so it's userbase keeps growing while the quality keeps dropping. I imagine reddit would take the latter path too. news.yc is also facing the same kind of change. Recalling the bunch of "delete me" posts last week, it seems like quality control is done mostly by self-policing of some sort. It's an issue of how much control and what tastes the users have, and what mechanisms have been implemented to strengthen or weaken the expression these tastes in the system. Most discussion sites fall into two extremes. Total moderator control, or total user control. A very powerful alternative doesn't simply lie in the middle; it shifts back and forth. This is the logical next step.