[ijoshua]

PG, I'd be interested to know why you chose to implement a voting/rating system for stories on news.yc. That is, did you consider a "weightless" submission system like, for example, MetaFilter, where front-page postings are a privilege that every member has equally. I've been a member of MeFi for several years and the effect of "gaming" has never really been an issue there, because there is no reification of trustworthiness in the form of a "karma" score. Certain members there certainly have name-recognition based on their history, but this gains them nothing in terms of influence on the focus or direction of the site as a whole.