I believe there's a bit of a false dichotomy implied here that there exists a contrast between things that people identify with and things people must have expe

I believe there's a bit of a false dichotomy implied here that there exists a contrast between things that people identify with and things people must have expertise in. I'd argue that anybody spending dozens of hours studying Haskell innards is probably heavily emotionally-motivated to learn Haskell. We just don't know what that motivation is. So it's not tech stuff on one side, fluffy emotional stuff on the other. Much more complicated than that. But yes, HN rewards things that receive quick votes. Any article requiring more than 20 minutes to consume, by definition will never reach the front page. That's why it's always the same cast of clowns who write things with emotional appeal that end up getting on the front. It's the combination of hero worship, easy-to-digest subject, emotional impact, and big fan base. I think PG is way off-base here about the ease of commenting. Commenting doesn't drive articles to the front. Voting does. Popularity on HN and quality of comments are two different subjects. Related yes, but separate. It's always been that way, just in the past the smaller group was much more diverse. Now it's reached the mob mentality point. Small mobs get really upset about chickens in functional testing or gotos in COBOL and easily sway the entire board because they can hit a new submission with so many votes so quickly.