I wonder if HN will wind up being sort of like Slashdot in the sense that the experienced people on the site will continue to make the site rich of such experience, but will be accommodating to those not experienced in whatever area, and slowly, over time, the inexperienced will continue to exert influence. Mind you, not as a collective whole, but as an ongoing wave of new people (those inexperienced people will become experiences either though reading the site, or just going along as usual). So could this cause a slight dumbing down of the site? Or will the two groups (veterans vs. inexperienced) just read different articles?

I'd like HN to stay experienced only. I'm not sure how that can happen. Maybe new members votes count less, like wise or experienced peoples' advice counts for more.

The alternative is to do what reddit does: subreddits. Or do what reddit doesn't do: automatic filtering (essentially per-user subreddits based on past voting).

Don't hate on us not-as-technical hackers! :)

But seriously, it's helpful as I dive more into the command line.

I don't hate you, I'm just surprised that beginner level stuff is getting this number of votes. I think it's important to say when something isn't working. Even better would be for me to suggest a solution.