I apologize for submitting this article. If it is viewed by the community as sub-par or unworthy please know it was unintentional. My thought was that this take on the article helped put the numbers into perspective relative to other classes of trade. It probably would have made a better comment than submission.
I have a huge respect for what has been created at HN and though my account is less than a year old I've been reading for far longer.
Two thoughts on things that could be done other than weighting (which I'm actually a fan of).
1. I would make this guideline a bit more explicit "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter. -- Reference replies to the primary source in comments unless the analysis is equal to or greater in quality than the original"
2. Create a 2 column approach for comments with "new" on the right and sequential, or popular on the left. This would help some comments get a fair hearing in heavily threaded stories.
However neither suggestion will take the place of a strong community. Thanks for calling me out.