> dilute the purity of the community here
Careful now :) It's not like there's anything stopping HN attracting a wider audience anyway; there's no restriction on who can register. Anyone can come and join in, which (in my opinion) is as it should be.
Re:How to get your IP unbanned on HN
by marcusmacinnes on Friday November 09, 2012 @10:18AM
(#4763139)
Of course. I'm not suggesting that there should be any limitations on who can join, but as the community moves more mainstream, quality will dilute. As the site is rather un-sexy right now, it seems to attract those who are genuinely interested. Remember what happened to Digg...
The site is very much hacked together, but works... In a lot of ways, this reflects the hacker ethos of getting something up and running quickly at low cost while still producing value.
A revamp might have negative impact too by attracting a wider, more mainstream audience which could possibly dilute the purity of the community here.