> Posts by some folks such as PG get auto-voted to the top
My understanding of HN's sorting is that it takes into account the average karma of a poster's past comments and includes that in the weighting. Given that, it's not surprising that pg and others are always at the top (and it's a bit of a self-perpetuating system for power users).
Yes, this self-perpetuation of platforms for power users business does indeed create 'meritocracy and value' of the readers attention and time. But then again, in many cases, it does not. When I broach the subject personally, I feel that HN works for me because it seems to promote more for 'the idea of the successful action/techno hero' rather than any particular individual, but then again all Internet forums promote the Archetype that they attract. Which is to say that any particular word, itself, that we put out there on the Internet, eventually collates with other 'words', 'subjects', 'forms', and so on .. forming what we have. Perhaps I am responding more the language of the hero in the HN/reddit zeitgeist, also, the banal.
My understanding of HN's sorting is that it takes into account the average karma of a poster's past comments and includes that in the weighting. Given that, it's not surprising that pg and others are always at the top (and it's a bit of a self-perpetuating system for power users).