[Andrew_Quentin]

What, it all does not matter? This is all just meaningless words on a computer said by somebody somewhere?

I think that is resignation. Every community needs a culture, forms to pressure others into doing the 'right' things, ways to be able to incorporate others. Once you loosen up and make it free for all this might as well be talking to the lowest denominator.

[rorymarinich]

I don't think it's a bad thing that HN's upvotes/downvotes aren't as good as they could be. Honestly I don't think anybody cares about who has the most points in a given thread. What matters is what people say, and how they interact with one another. While Hacker News has some problems with that sometimes, on the whole it does a damn good job of being a community. Even the irritating things about it are kind of adorable in a way.

When I said it's meaningless, I mean relatively rather than in some nihilistic sense. Obviously, things on this site matter. But if we have a front page on which I'm only interested in 5 or so posts at a time because I think the rest are silly, that's not too bad if other people are looking at those other posts. I'm not going to get too pissed off at the sensationalism and the dumb stuff. That's just the way this site is. Trying too hard to change that might ruin all the things that I like.

HN is not particularly Serious Business, you know? It's a fun site with some great commenters, but it's not like MetaFilter where the culture is so unique and good that I'd get upset if it started deteriorating. Or like the old threads I read on Slashdot or Usenet where I realize there was such a good thing once but now it's gone into decline. HN has always had these community guidelines that nobody follows, and its successes have been despite that. If that makes sense.