How readily does reputation change with scandals ? Because we seem to be in the middle of a pretty big one, where the functioning of the whole system is in question.
BTW for this last one, HN seems to be outright blocking submissions, with the dreaded (and in this case disingenuous) "you are posting too fast" error. Now I'm willing to leave some benefit of the doubt that this is done in order to minimize flamewars, but it does still leave a bad taste...