IMO being a part of a community for less than a year isn't a long enough snapshot to accurately judge trends in that community. The site guidelines recognizes t

IMO being a part of a community for less than a year isn't a long enough snapshot to accurately judge trends in that community. The site guidelines recognizes this too: "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion." In regards to your suggestion, invite only wouldn't work. All the accounts that submitted and up-voted the iPad articles are registered already, so how would switching over to invite only change anything in your scenario?