An ex-HNer commented a while back, while leaving the community, that the primary deterrent was the culture change to where discussion was not valued. He stated that the primary draw to "Old HN" were not the articles themselves, but rather the long-tailed intellectual discourses that happened in the comments.
I often see comment threads die out on HN far too quickly, and the parties lose interest often. Any change that would promote more critical insight and stimulating conversations gets a profound thumbs up from me.
I'd like a simple interface to go back and browse/read those old threads (even if read-only). Has anyone done that?
(I had some archived but lost the archive... I know.)
For example, pick a date and see all the threads that started on that date.
However, I also have concern for the load/overload this might place on the HN systems. So... maybe present time is the best, all things considered. But I do miss the tone, quality, and signal/noise ratio of those early threads.
I often see comment threads die out on HN far too quickly, and the parties lose interest often. Any change that would promote more critical insight and stimulating conversations gets a profound thumbs up from me.