Isn't this the same pattern as yesterday's "bozo" post? The general principle there was "B players hire C players and so on". Granted, we're talking about posters and topics instead of "players", but couldn't it be the same thing in a nutshell?
"People are voting up comments or submissions that don't fit..." sounds just like "People are hiring people who don't fit..." to me.
It seems to me that trying to solve HN's problem by voting would be more similar to solving a company's bozo problem by internal policies, like performance reviews. If bozos can overrun any internal policy of the company, and the only solution for companies is not hiring bozos in the first place, then the only solution for HN is not allowing bozos to register accounts. (Not sure how you'd achieve that though.) That fits well with my impression that HN's early awesomeness was due to an initial pool of awesome people attracted by PG's writings, not due to voting.
"People are voting up comments or submissions that don't fit..." sounds just like "People are hiring people who don't fit..." to me.
Or am I wrong?