[jumper]

I find that the site has definitely spread apart in it's values. And the real problem is as "undesireables" flood in, the people who are truer to the original culture get disgusted and back away.

As a personal (though perhaps not universal) example, see here, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=458256 , a +23 comment decrying the multi-page split of the article. See here, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=398185 , my own comment railing against them wasting my time\effort like that.... modded down to -6.

I don't want to be a whiny nuisance about it, but when that happened it really alienated me from the community and quite frankly I don't think I've contributed much anything of value since. I felt betrayed when I chose to stand against that kind of crap and I was stabbed in the back. Add in the fact that the "rules" are not being applied equally as the culture splits, and it just feels random and unfair.

To conclude my soapbox, I could be doing approx. 50 trillion things on the internet right now, so stop trying to waste my time\effort with 11 three sentence pages, snarky\"witty" comments; and God save the YCNews

[jhickner]

I think it just comes down to wording. The post that ends with "FAIL" got downvoted.

That seems pretty harsh to me, but I think people are just hypervigilant against any hint of encroaching diggishness.