[muldvarp]

Creating more friction can also lead to a higher percentage of bots. I for one immefiately leave when I realize that I need to jump through several hoops before I'm actually allowed to participate on a site. Someone building a bot farm on the other hand is probably willing to tolerate quite some friction before giving up.

[vunderba]

That's true. On the other hand, Hacker News is a pretty well known entity, so I think new users would be more willing to put in the time.

I also don't think it's too unreasonable to ask people to make comments and participate in the community before allowing them to do more.