I can get on board with a lot of the philosophy in your statements about refining or distilling "member quality". However, it needs to be said that there is a ruler-on-the-knuckles system of punishing opinions that dissent against those of this so-called "elite core" comprising HN, regardless of the correctness or quality of the dissent. And I think it happens with enough frequency and consistency that it has made the "elite core" into an "elitist exclusion zone" that ends up smoothing off the rough granularity of the kind of qualities that make someone an "elite" person. The kind of qualities that HN should be encouraging and helping to refine, if improving themselves and the community is indeed their goal.

Also, I think it's critical to be aware of correlation versus causation in situations like this. What is causing the "refinement of elite persons" that supposedly turns mediocre contributors into better ones on HN? We can say that people who read HN more than once a week will likely have exposure to something that helps them learn and grow, but that is not due to the nature of the other "elite" people on HN. It's due to the nature of the information presented on HN. I become a better programmer because I am exposed to quality information on HN, not because some "elite" member of HN is doing anything to make me a better programmer. This is a very important distinction, because more often than not, it seems that the "elite core" of HN is under the impression that they are improving mediocre contributors (and claiming victory) when in fact it is the content doing the improving.

There is a very interesting link here on HN called "the elves are leaving middle earth -- the soda is no longer free" (or similar) which describes the kind of "scale problem" HN is having. The management of HN itself is undergoing a very similar transition, from one of encouraging the hacker mindset to... something else.

Most importantly, I have often found that the "elite core" is sanding away the sort of rebellious je ne sais qois that makes a person "elite" -- or a "hacker". Please reference my favorite essay of pg's about "the word hacker". There is visible decay and erosion of the principles expressed in that essay in the daily happenings of HN. I have for years thrown that essay around as a cure-all explanation of why I think the way I do, and it seems an opus of irony that the "elite core" of HN would do well to read it and take stock. You should wonder why a "hacker" like myself is burning through throwaway accounts and getting hellbanned for what amounts to the expression of dissenting opinion. As pg said so eloquently so many years ago -- indeed, a different pg altogether -- a hacker "can sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm".

My senses are telling me to avoid HN and its "elite core", to the point that I need to weigh the benefits of staying versus the benefits of never coming back. And that is not a good sign for HN.