I Spent A Month Living In A Romanian Sexcam Studio
http://m.vice.com/read/bucharest-webcam-studios-america-outsourcing-sex-trade
Invisible Child: Dasani’s Homeless Life
http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/
Governments admit to faking terrorism: a list
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/12/governments-admit-they-carry-out-false-flag-terror/
They are excellent articles, and I feel bad about doing so. I'm sure the submitters posted them in good faith because they enjoyed them and wanted to share them with others. I read them, and enjoyed them too. By and large, the comments are high quality: better than vast majority of discussion on the mainstream internet.But that's the problem: I'm scared that if HN continues moving to becoming a discussion site for mainstream news, that it will be impossible to avoid a great slide in quality of stories and commentary. Historically the odds are really against it.
Maybe that's OK, maybe things have to evolve. If it happens, certainly there will be other sites that pop up to replace it, and they too will have their period of quality conversation before they too evolve. Still, it seems like an unnecessary loss.
Am I wrong to be worried? Is there a better solution than flagging high-quality popular articles that don't have a hacker or start-up focus?