Yeah, submissions may be where the solution lies. I'm not sure if it's just me but has anyone else noticed that the New page gets completely saturated with spam? I have show dead turned on and I used to see a handful of dead stories. These days it's not uncommon for me to see 5 live stories with the rest having been killed. A month or so ago there was a discussion about HN's rank on Google. I'd be happy to see it close to the bottom of the first page if at all.