zlacker

The Stack Overflow guidelines prohibit discussion topics, but they still find their way through every once in awhile because the community doesn't mind them if they're interesting enough. Same thing here.

>>so_use+(OP)
yes, that's true -- but we also allow people to vote against those off-topic articles, and move to close (or reopen) them. There's no way to vote down a link submission on HN.

>>coding+f
Right but if enough people find it interesting it finds its way to the front page. I think it makes sense in the context of saying that if X people like this, more than X other people will probably like it too. And that's the point - find stuff that the audience likes.

I think that's pretty healthy. It means that Paul Graham gets an article to the front page one day, and the next day a rebuttal to that article goes up right next to it. Doesn't matter if all the people who agree with one want to downvote the other - as long as it's good, we all get a chance to judge for ourselves.