(1) I don't want to make HN less accessible to new users. Older users often want us to add barriers for newcomers. I believe that would be a mistake. The risk to HN of failing to attract new legit users is higher than any benefit of making it harder to join.

Reasonable, but this already happens - new users aren't able to downvote or flag until they've accumulated a certain amount of karma. I don't see how asking people to make 3 or 5 submissions before gaining commenting privileges would be a big hindrance.

This cost would be highest in the case of legit new users—who are inclined to bail when they encounter friction—and lowest in the case of serial trolls, who know better than anyone how to get around restrictions.

Why have an email address requirement at all then? Correspondingly, why not reveal the emails of serial trolls so they can be screened out on in other places, so that abuse results in a loss of privacy? The fact that trolls know ways to get around friction doesn't mean it's not time-consuming.

Also this seems kinda panglossian in that it assumes HN is mostly running optimally. It doesn't consider the large number of people who don't want to join HN because they perceive it as a forum where toxic behavior is semi-tolerated.

It's particularly important that new users (or existing ones who want to comment anonymously) who have unique expertise or experience about a topic be able to sign up and comment immediately. Some of HN's best-ever comments have been of that kind.

This is a valid point, but I question the urgency. It would be equally easy for people to post anonymously on a blog and submit that.

Your complaint is different: you haven't forgotten that you turned 'showdead' on, and you understand it fine—you just don't like having to see so much garbage when you do turn it on. And I agree—who would? A lot of what's in there is sewage, the worst that the internet has to offer.

But you signed up for this when you turned on 'showdead'—that's the 'contract', so to speak. You don't like this and want us to change it, but you're the only person asking for this. Everyone else who turns on 'showdead' understands that that's what they signed up for, save for the few who (as I just described) forgot that they did it and need a refresher.

It's not that I mind seeing it as such - I regularly deal with far worse in other contexts. What I question is why you let people keep doing it, as opposed to just burning their accounts. Yes, it's easy for trolls to set up a new account, but even easier to keep using the one they have. Not disincentivinzg the behavior means you'll get mroe.

(3) The 'showdead' system is critical to community trust on HN. [...] I realize that you feel differently—you don't want to see everything—but this is definitely not how most users who turn on 'showdead' feel.

This is not my position.

(4) The problem of serial trolls is not one we can ever solve [...] then we work on strengthening the immune system. What we don't do is try to replace the immune system with a different one, because the risks of doing that would be higher—the cure could be worse than the disease. There are other risks that actually do threaten the health and survival of this community. Those are the ones we need to focus on and put resources into addressing.

I can't really evaluate this as it's so vague.

(5) There have been times in the past when we have added barriers, and the result was scandal and fiasco. I'm thinking, for example, of pg's old "pending comments" design, which led to outrage, accusations of elitism, and so on. I'm not saying this is the same as what you're proposing, but it's in the same ballpark, and it's a ballpark where we've had bad results in the past, leaving me inclined to avoid it.

I understand that. But even if you don't want to change anything at all for new users,, that doesn't really explain why you don't impose any penalty at all on serial abusers. As things stand, there's less* effort involved in posting on HN than on 4chan, which is one reason people shitpost here when they are getting ignored on /g/ (4chan's technology board).