Sadly true. HN now gets 40k uniques a day, and I am starting to worry about the character of the comments.
The biggest danger is not the obviously bad comments, though. It's the meretricious ones-- the zippy one-line putdowns and strident political statements-- because the newer users actually vote these up.
The big surprise for me is how much the mere voting power of the new users is changing the character of the site. A zippy one-liner that a year ago would have languished midway down the thread now becomes the top comment.
So while I agree with you that the right thing to do about overtly troll posts is to silently flag them, I'm still not sure what to do about the subtler and more dangerous decline I've been seeing.
I suppose I should be encouraged we made it to 40k in decent shape. Maybe I'll be able to come up with some kind of fix.
The biggest danger is not the obviously bad comments, though. It's the meretricious ones-- the zippy one-line putdowns and strident political statements-- because the newer users actually vote these up.
The big surprise for me is how much the mere voting power of the new users is changing the character of the site. A zippy one-liner that a year ago would have languished midway down the thread now becomes the top comment.
So while I agree with you that the right thing to do about overtly troll posts is to silently flag them, I'm still not sure what to do about the subtler and more dangerous decline I've been seeing.
I suppose I should be encouraged we made it to 40k in decent shape. Maybe I'll be able to come up with some kind of fix.