I remember about 7 or 8 months ago or so I had made a string of comments very similar to the one you have made and was subsequently modded down into oblivion.

I remember about 7 or 8 months ago or so I had made a string of comments very similar to the one you have made and was subsequently modded down into oblivion. I believe with the new influx of users the line has been blurred as to what qualifies as Hacker News. This is evident with the recent rise in not only political stories and stories pulled right from Reddit/programming. These types submissions are key to maintaining the integrity of a social news website and refreshing in some peoples minds as to what deems a story relevant to the intended goal of a site. New users need to be reminded of what is expected from both comments and submissions or soon the level of intellectualism and substance will be drowned out just like every other website. Someone might not have the capacity to add much to a conversation or provide any insight, but when they have a point of reference as to was is expected they should still be able to follow accordingly. This argument wasn't the appropriate side for me to take on months ago so surely it is not appropriate now. If the community decides that this is the direction it will go, then I believe it will suffer the same fate as the other social news sites.