"... What's amazing to me isn't that /. has carried on this long, but rather that the comment quality on here hasn't gone the way of most social new sites. ..."

I am surprised /. has survived. The place pretty much as it was back when it started in '97.

This is my first post for a couple of years. But there was a time when I lived here. I remember when /. was sold & CmdrTaco said all he wanted to do was run it I'm sure I for one didn't believe he'd still be at it now. The sig/noise is still bad if you trawl below the +2 level. But at +5 it's readable. I think the combination of moderation, ability to filter comments (text, best comments at top), culture and relationships have helped shape the site into something *still* readable. HackerNews [0], where I sort of trawl now exhibits all of the same sorts of growing pains /. had to go through.

[0] HN is to Startups what /. is (was) to Linux.