Yes and no. This is the community's immune response. A couple of weeks after an influx of new users, the community stages a massive navel-gazing festival designed to test the new folks' mettle.
Once we shake off the people who don't really want to be here, we'll return to our usual diet of startup announcements, website reviews, complaints about techcrunch, artfully disguised attempts to reignite holy wars so that we can all spectate, and questions that have been asked every six months since the beginning of the site. Not to mention: news and information.
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NOTICE: This has been an attempt at humor. Do not refer to it as a "theory", lest ye be mocked. Please phrase replies in haiku form.
You're good. I saw the word "theory" and was getting ready to mock you! But in fact yours is a meta-comment about my so-called theory, and that is so in-keeping with today's theme that I should really upmod it twice.
I'd love to share the demo, but I don't fill like spilling the beans on the details of it yet. It's one of those things where once the idea is out, it's out, and I want to be sure I'm in a position to get the most out of it.
It sounds like a fascinating idea, though! I'd love to chat with you about commenting online in general - maybe not about your system in particular but about how commenting works. If you ever need somebody to bounce ideas off of, drop a line!
It would appear that meta was just the beginning, we now have meta-meta-posts :p
Seriously though, the meta-phase, or the crawling-up-its-own-arse phase, seems to be something a lot of sites go through. Hopefully it will die down soon because it's getting a bit boring.
Ye Gods! It's a discussion about meta discussions!
It's our first meta meta discussion!
I feel so proud.
I'm vehemently opposed to meta meta discussions. This is like staring at somebody else while they look at their belly button. Or looking at your own belly button while somebody else stares at you. Or staring at somebody else's belly button while they look at yours. Or something like that (I am assured that all of this has to do with naval gazing by other commenters)
If you must reply, please make it rhyme (I never could figure out how to do that haiku format)
HN is always on about how the community is degrading, though apparently there has been some recent evidence to suggest that it is. That's what all the ballyhoo is about.
There are always lots of articles about "Rate my startup!" and "Ask HN", though. If you meant that you've been noticing a lot of those, then it's not a phase---it's regular.
The general rule for "meta" is: "meta-X" → "X about X." Examples: "meta-data" → "data about data", "meta-language" → "language about language", "meta-vanity" → "vanity about vanity" (a concept explored by the late DFW though he termed it "second-order vanity"), etc.
Once we shake off the people who don't really want to be here, we'll return to our usual diet of startup announcements, website reviews, complaints about techcrunch, artfully disguised attempts to reignite holy wars so that we can all spectate, and questions that have been asked every six months since the beginning of the site. Not to mention: news and information.
--- NOTICE: This has been an attempt at humor. Do not refer to it as a "theory", lest ye be mocked. Please phrase replies in haiku form.