I don't know who you are and have no connection with HN other than as an ordinary user, so maybe my unbiased view will be of some interest to you. Your comment convinces me that the HN staff are doing exactly the right thing and that your expectations are unreasonable. If Slashdot had found a way to detect and penalize people who were upvoting fluff, it would be far more useful today. Obviously the HN approach offends you, but they have succeeded in maintaining a quality general discussion forum over time, an accomplishment that seems to have eluded almost any other group that has tried.