I don't think that would serve the audience/community of Hacker News well at all. If you're hiding stories that are popular, the bad content is still existing in the community and shaping the brand and therefore it's current and new audience.

The benefit of Hackers News is the /users/, one only has to look at Digg to see where that goes once you open the flood gates beyond the social geek core.

.. as opposed to what? I'm not sure I get you. You sound like you're arguing for a true downmod, to help hide it from /everyone/'s view.

Upmod the good stories and ignore the bad ones. Eventually the bad ones will get filtered out of view as the good stories rise.

Agreed, a "Hide this crap" X would be very useful.