Part 1
I'm one of those new guys around here (to be honest I really don't know how I find out about Hacker News, maybe twitter) and maybe one of those assholes who are killing this community (if it is even possible) with it's valuable content. I just read in this blog post what I'm doing wrong here and how I'm helping those contents which don't belong at Hacker News come to the front page BUT I never knew and never wanted to do that. I love this community and I have to say it really opened my mind about functional programming, startups, making decisions, learning from lessons and so on. But in fact there was no-one who told me what this is all about, what news belong at Hacker News, how to comment and react right, that I should up-vote content which are valuable and not which are cool and exactly what I think about it.
In a place where are no rules people will act like there are no rules. And by rules I don't mean restrictions I mean telling people what is Hacker News and what is it about: startups, hackers, fancy geeky things, sharing thoughts ect. By not telling this to the newer AND older (who maybe forget about it) you are supporting that Hacker News becoming more and more invaluable. You are also supporting it if you are just opting out of this community. Come on, is it this everything you can do? To just leave and not help Hacker News become better (again)? It's not my style and hopefully it will never become my style.
If you want to give the Hacker News community something back maybe it would be a article about Hacker News and what it is and what it is for.
Part 2
I really don't understand why people are complaining about a lack of a feature when they could write it on their own. We are all hackers and pretty good ones. So grab for example GreaseMonkey and write a freakin' down-vote button own your own. When you are finish submit it to Hacker News and I bet my balls it will become a top topic for several days and everyone will use it. There you have it: the way a real hacker would go, right? Just do it. (No I'm not working for Nike)
Part 3
Hacker News is time consuming. Yeah thats exactly what it is BUT while it is time consuming it has a pretty good value cause you read about what people did wrong and who you can do it better on the next time and which services can turn to bad even if it was in theory really excellent.
Before I knew Hacker News I hang out on StackOverflow, some Blogs about Gadgets and so on. Now I'm just hanging out on Hacker News and reading all those valuable content (I try to focus on the ones which are interesting and not about TSA and other US-political stuff ect).
I learned so much about programming, software architectures, startups and wrong technology decisions that I'm glad I 'wasted' my time here and not on Facebook, Gizmodo, DaringFireball, you name it.
Part 4
Everyone has to do what they love and what they feel to do. If it is hacking and to exchange your experience: you are welcome. If Hacker News is turning to a waste of time for you? Drop it.
Last but not least
I hope I could write something which is valuable for all of you.
Note: Sorry for my bad english. I'm from Germany and so my english is sadly not my primary language. Feel free to correct me.