Just to be clear, I said HN system is barely function but it's by no fault of their own. How can you know for sure I'm not a dog?
But I thought more in terms of less is more. Introducing artificial temporary scarcity to foster creativity instead of relying on sheer volume of information to increase the chances for high quality interactions, which also increases the absolute volume of low quality noise.
Also maybe after quarantine is over your thread could be accessible to everyone else so others could join later, as long as the group agrees to open up the discussion.