> Unlike actual crack, there's no danger of side effects
There's a big danger of side effects to HN itself. When taken excessively—the natural tendency—it makes the site less intellectually interesting, which alienates the best kinds of user (and attracts the less best kinds). Maybe if we could be like David Cross and just do crack once each...
> one or two meta posts couldn't hurt. I think self-consciousness is a positive attribute for a community
This I agree with but HN is extremely well-resourced in this area. The intention behind penalizing such stories, as I tried to explain above, is not to suppress them but to countervail.
How about if there was a bit associated with every post that indicates whether it's meta or not. A submitter can set it when they post if they like; a mod can set or clear it later. Perhaps users could flag posts as being meta as well, i don't know.
Then we just take all the meta posts off the main page, and show them on another top-level page like Ask HN or Show HN.
I i think i'd be happy for meta posts to appear on the 'new' page. There aren't that many of them, so they won't flood it. If they get upvoted, they get promoted to a different place to substantive posts, so they won't clog it.
It's a bit like a GC which allocates large objects in the nursery, so you can still, eg, create a scratch buffer quickly, but promotes them to a large-object heap instead of the normal tenuring generations.
Interesting that you make a drug analogy. What's wrong with letting HN users have their crack? Unlike actual crack, there's no danger of side effects, dependency, withdrawal, etc. Maybe the "upvoting trance" is the expression of a sincere communal desire? It's not like it's "trashy" content... meta is simply self-reflection. Why penalize it?
Maybe the fear is that the front page will be overrun with meta content... that makes sense, but I feel like one or two meta posts couldn't hurt. I think self-consciousness is a positive attribute for a community.