[spacemanmatt]

There's some cultural and some technical elitism here, and you can taste it. It's available on other forums, but I think it's a touch stronger here. On the other hand, HN does a great job of shouting down trolls and truly ignorant (unresearched/uninformed) opinions. As such, I find a stronger S/N here despite the elitism. It's pretty easy to filter/calibrate for that than the trolling and sheer idiocy so pervasive in other venues.

[forgottenpass]

As such, I find a stronger S/N here despite the elitism.

Despite? I've only been on the internet for 15 years, but I thought elitism was the only way to increase s/n ratio.

I've seen elitism enforced through selecting _who_ can talk or _how_ the people talk to eachother. But I've never seen anything but "GOML" change interaction for the better. Even this "Dear Javascript" can be seen as a flavor of GOML.

[spacemanmatt]

Nosir, I often consider elitism part of the noise. It's just a particularly filterable part of the usual array of noise sources, though. And I recognize this is a subjective statement; YMMV.