[sangnoir]

"Polluting HN" is more than just the vitriol thats flagged - there are plenty of self-promoting, downright wrong, or comments clearly unrelated to the posted article but comment author gets to segue to their hobby-horse (off-topic discussions are annoyingly frequent, IMO). HN is better than most, but its not immune to being gamed. Once there is a financial incentive for it, it will become more common - see how Twitter turned out after offering monetary incentives for engagements.

[Fnoord]

I mean, is your post off-topic? It is a tangent. Tangents are cool. You may or may not like one, that is OK.

[sangnoir]

> I mean, is your post off-topic?

My comment directly answered parent comment on an issue pertaining to search engines. How is that a tangent or remotely off-topic? This meta-discussion, on the other hand...