The fact that that consequence was literally what I immediately thought of when I read this makes me believe that you have not thought this issue through deeply enough. You say
>the thing I'd overlooked
but this is a drastic overhaul you are proposing, and I believe you have overlooked many other things too.
Let me give you some examples of other consequences: The amount of activity on HN varies with time of day. This is a problem, because on low activity hours, there will be fewer approvers (presumably, every approver has a particular taste, so the more people around, the higher the likelihood someone with compatible taste will find and approve your comment) around. This will mean that the few people that are there during the off-hours will have reduced posting speed. Since the site is more American than European, this will favor american posts over european.
Furthermore it will be risky to respond to people down low on the page. Longer post delay! This will (further) encourage threadjacking people up high on the page.
One potential consequence is that you will have to be attention grabbing. Probability of approval=eyeballs*individual probability.
>the thing I'd overlooked
but this is a drastic overhaul you are proposing, and I believe you have overlooked many other things too.
Let me give you some examples of other consequences: The amount of activity on HN varies with time of day. This is a problem, because on low activity hours, there will be fewer approvers (presumably, every approver has a particular taste, so the more people around, the higher the likelihood someone with compatible taste will find and approve your comment) around. This will mean that the few people that are there during the off-hours will have reduced posting speed. Since the site is more American than European, this will favor american posts over european. Furthermore it will be risky to respond to people down low on the page. Longer post delay! This will (further) encourage threadjacking people up high on the page. One potential consequence is that you will have to be attention grabbing. Probability of approval=eyeballs*individual probability.