Have read the article, and read through all 97 comments that had been left here as of the time of this posting. And this comes back to something I know has been discussed at least a few times before. Essentially that many good sites started with a high Signal to Noise ratio. Then more folks found out about them, and they added more signal, but variety started to creep in, and what is signal to me may be noise to you, and vice versa. Which means that there may actually be MORE signal to noise now, but for the average user/reader there appears to be less because the signal they are interested in is diluted.

There have been a number of answers to this, and each of them can be found to have evolved essentially from UseNet News and various simple BBS and/or FidoNet BBS programs. Not a one of them is perfect (obviously or the discussion would be unnecessary).

I "personally" think the best answer is to have a site where the "main" board is run by a benevolent dictator, who also has to monitor other boards off the main board but has no similar moderation on those boards. Allows the main board to develop a personality that you can rely on, while insuring that differing views get their day in the sun, and allow for the growth of new moderators over time.

I used to run a C64 BBS and wrote and ran an Amiga BBS, and so have at least some experience to validate my opinion. I suppose if I'm serious about this being the answer I should be willing to set such a place up and see if people would actually like it. One person below mentioned a Metafilter $5 to "subscribe" to post model, but I'm not sure how that would work as a long term model - though I suspect I would prefer that to having something overrun with ads.

Anyway, there's my .02 cents. <- Actually that might be an answer worth looking into too. The postal service once looked at offering e-stamps to give you guaranteed delivery and some level of authentication per message. Perhaps if folks had to pay for each post (even nominally) that would be another option. For your consideration...