I just turned 18. I have no bank account, no credit card, no PayPal account, nothing. Charging for HN would mean asking me - and others like me - to leave. HN is a valuable website, and I don't want to lose it.
Here's an idea: make HN invite-only. Members get to invite others only when they reach a certain karma level (say, X). Once they reach level X, they get to invite 3 people. After that, they get to invite one more person per Y karma points, where Y < X. Moreover, inviting others would mean losing those Y points.
Diligence on the part of existing users would ensure only people who post insightful content get karma.
Invite-only would get rid of people like me, who come here to learn from those who are able to do, with hopes that one of these days I'll be able to do it myself. I lurk, yes, and only try to comment when I feel I can contribute to the discussion. But I certainly don't troll, or post witty one liners just to get my karma up.
A pay site would at least allow me in, but I don't know anyone here, and no one here knows who I am, so I wouldn't know how to get an invite.
I have a solution to the no-money objection: to become and to stay a member, you have to pay $5 / yr or solve CAPTCHAs or do some other kind of tedious make-work that takes about an hour per year out of your life.
I just turned 18. I have no bank account, no credit card, no PayPal account, nothing. Charging for HN would mean asking me - and others like me - to leave. HN is a valuable website, and I don't want to lose it.
Here's an idea: make HN invite-only. Members get to invite others only when they reach a certain karma level (say, X). Once they reach level X, they get to invite 3 people. After that, they get to invite one more person per Y karma points, where Y < X. Moreover, inviting others would mean losing those Y points.
Diligence on the part of existing users would ensure only people who post insightful content get karma.