An interesting rant. I've observed that problem solvers also follow something like the inverse power law, which is to say it takes a certain kind of person to attack large problems and as the problems get larger the set of people willing to consider them seriously decreases logarithmically until it asymptotically approaches zero.
In an analagous fashion the "quality" (using karma as a metric of quality) of comments on HN are also quite high and drop off steeply approaching zero. This is reflected both in the comments, and in the karma distribution [1]. The trick is to keep the noise floor high enough for quality reading and low enough that you don't miss out on new people making great comments.
In an analagous fashion the "quality" (using karma as a metric of quality) of comments on HN are also quite high and drop off steeply approaching zero. This is reflected both in the comments, and in the karma distribution [1]. The trick is to keep the noise floor high enough for quality reading and low enough that you don't miss out on new people making great comments.
[1] http://www.mcmanis.com/karma-chart.html