But as a fellow long-time lurker, I think accounts like ours make up for the long tail of HN contributions particularly in the form of comments.

I also think that long-time lurkers account for most of HN's readership.

The goal of HN isn't to please the majority, and pg seems to think that giving more moderation power to those with more karma will foster better discourse.

I urge pg to reconsider this. While it doesn't take any real effort to have an old account. And while it often feels that power, even moderation power, ought to be earned. I think giving long-time users the ability to endorse comments, even if they have little karma, won't degrade HN's discourse but instead improve it.

Lurkers post less, and therefore have less karma. Lurkers understand that when they don't have anything worthwhile to contribute, they aren't obligated to add to the noise in order to score internet points. I don't think that lurkers who have enjoyed HN for years without much individual activity are going to go out of their way to endorse pending comments that are low quality.

I hope that most would respect the higher standard HN holds comments to compared to some other sites. I suspect that those higher standards might be what has kept them coming back.

Oh. And since I'm posting this past 11 PM PDT on a Friday night, I doubt this comment will earn me much in the way of karma even though this is the type of constructive commenting that pg wants on HN, or so I hope. I think this goes to show that karma isn't a perfect stat for determining who can endorse comments. And while account age might not be perfect for this either, I think some combination of both would be better.