HN is undergoing the transition that every community undergoes, from ultra-exclusive and underground to more populist. There's always gnashing of teeth from the

HN is undergoing the transition that every community undergoes, from ultra-exclusive and underground to more populist. There's always gnashing of teeth from the entrenched userbase as a site becomes popular. Well yeah, and in my IMHO the teeth gnashers are right. Every community that undergoes this transition turns into a wasteland, at least by my elitist tastes. I'd hate to see Hacker News go the same way. A full-time programmer could try to design new features to stave off the decline. For instance, maybe up-voting power could be adjusted based on karma, so that the mob has less power to up-vote the nasty comments to the top of every thread. Maybe a better flagging system could be put in place so commenters could be warned when they are breaking the guidelines, but warning a way that does not create a long thread discussing the flagging. There are many ideas, it would take a lot of time to figure out which ones actually worked.