The two options aren't really fair--I want less NSA news, but I still want them ranked naturally. I think it would be best for everyone to concentrate any give

The two options aren't really fair--I want less NSA news, but I still want them ranked naturally. I think it would be best for everyone to concentrate any given topic (not just NSA stuff) to at most a couple of threads at a time. This way discussions are a bit less disjoint and there's more room for other topics. In fact, this is exactly what's happening right now, but we have certainly been oversaturated with NSA topics in the past. Also, I think artificially changing the algorithm to deal with any particular topic is probably not a good idea. I believe it's better to let the community implicitly choose what to talk about. Trying to work around a specific topic is going to obscure useful signals from HN readers and will only help until the next hot topic arrives.