zlacker

Presumably the name changed to reflect the fact that there are many things unrelated to startups that the founding "hackers" wished to discuss. HN isn't entirely about startups now, in the same way Amazon is not purely about books any more.

You seem to dislike the non-startup material, yet those older members who were around at that time must have liked the discussions sprouting from the "more generalist tech" posts, else the name wouldn't have been changed.

Thus, I reason that it is not the range of topics submitted that is the problem, but the quality of the posts and subsequent comments. I believe the older members valued intelligent discussion on any topic (centered around tech-startups).

I think a solution should concentrate on improving the discussion of topics, promoting those that spark the "best" (for some definition of "best") conversations. Therefore I suggest:

More liberal use of the downvote button by those that have the ability (over 500). Number and score of comments should play a (larger?) factor in ranking stories. More aggressive moderation of "off topic" or vacuous submissions and comments.

>>Jabble+(OP)
When the name was changed to "Hacker", the term Hacker wasn't used in the tech sense but rather in the same sense that it's used in the YC application form. As in a clever unorthodox solution to a problem.

But over time people took it to mean hacker in the technology sense of the term, and thus we now get reviews of Ubuntu on the front page, which you would never have seen a few years ago.