[silentbicycle]

While you're correct, I think the commenting and voting tendencies of the overall site population tend to drown them out. Intelligent discussions on Reddit seem to have a higher chance of being derailed by e.g. people posting 4chan cliches for cheap laughs.

Of course, he's flattering us, and he got voted way up...

[unalone]

Yeah, we're kinda suckers too.

I still think this site has more signal-to-noise than any other social news site except Metafilter, which is a good sign. I can still look at the top stories each day and find perhaps 20-25 that're worth at least a look, and 10 or so that generate discussions that I'm interested in participating in.

[silentbicycle]

Metafilter has a $5 upfront signup fee and diligent moderators. I'm convinced that's ultimately the best way to keep out most trolling and other assorted malarkey.