But it often happens that HN gets stuck in a rut of some particular kind of stupid story for a bit. This causes people who haven't been through one of these cyc

But it often happens that HN gets stuck in a rut of some particular kind of stupid story for a bit. This causes people who haven't been through one of these cycles to say that we've jumped the shark. (This belief is such a constant we should considering making it the site's tagline.) And then things return to normal. Agreed. Perhaps restricting self posts to those who have been active members in the site for a long time (karma count?) could help that. Given that upvotes have a karma min, I don't think that putting a karma min on self posts is unreasonable.