I know, why don't we just have elections every 4 years for community moderators to represent us. And they can vote/downvote on our behalf! Sounds brilliant.
A bit of a sarcastic tone, yes. But the hive-mind comment strikes at the heart of the issues of "democracy" and group dynamics. I'd even argue that group-moderated internet discussions are more "democratic" than actual democracy, with the only difference being the real-world physical repercussions of said voting.
An excellent benevolent dictator can be so much better than any system where there's a big pressure to converging to the crowd average, or even the lowest common denominator of the crowd.
Most of us joined HN for exactly this reason. It was run in dictator fashion by a guy whose writings and actions showed that he was clearly above what ever be achieved by a general crowd average, at least in a particular area of expertise.
Unfortunately, his other work prevented him from spending much time here, and it's now been years since he left all active involvement in the community entirely.
The departure of the benevolent dictator is almost always catastrophic, as far as I sense. Imagine if Linus had left Linux after just a couple years, or if Guido had left Python after just a couple years. You can start to see evidence of the problems that a disappearing excellent dictator causes in the decision paralysis facing the Bitcoin community now.
What's good, is that the HN successor should appear within the next few years.
A bit of a sarcastic tone, yes. But the hive-mind comment strikes at the heart of the issues of "democracy" and group dynamics. I'd even argue that group-moderated internet discussions are more "democratic" than actual democracy, with the only difference being the real-world physical repercussions of said voting.