That would just kill off the community, since there is some natural attrition that always happens in a given community that has to be compensated for with new u

That would just kill off the community, since there is some natural attrition that always happens in a given community that has to be compensated for with new users (and moderation to guide these new users). The problem facing HN IMO is not so much about spammers but low-effort comments and jokes (what dang calls reflexive vs reflective[1]). [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=reflective%20vs%20reflexive%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...