Personally I don't mind some "reddit esque" (or whatever you want to call them) comments here and there. The level of those present on HN is low anyway. They could/should be less in some cases, but they don't bother much as the majority is still mostly insightful comments or interesting discussions. Imagine a completely sterile online community without any communication side-tracked, even if it's just a tiny bit, from the informational topic. That just wouldn't feel right to me. The equivalent of a "everyone got a stick up their lower half" workplace. Yuck.