On Slashdot, it is impossible to get measurable attention unless you say something about a specific type of topic in a certain kind of way in a certain number of words. HN used to have the right amount of new topics so that it attracted people, yet not so many posts that you'd miss a new topic on the first page. Now that there are so many people here, you can't post anything without it being basically out of mass consideration within a short amount of time due to the high topic creation rate. HN is no longer either elitist or intellectual. Other than a tech-entrepreneurial bent, how is the "new" area any different than the Slashdot Firehose, except that it appears to be more popular?