But wasn't the influx of 14 year olds driven by general interest articles, which very slowly got less interesting and more general?

How could that slow boil be prevented?

I think the 14 year olds were attracted by a sense of lawlessness, most visible in the long, highly editorialized titles and the trollish comments.

It wasn't so much general interest articles that signalled the decline of Reddit as partisan political ones. I.e. articles that didn't merely involve politics, but were instances of it.

BTW, let me add that by "14 year olds" I mean people who behave like 14 year olds. Actual 14 year olds are welcome here so long as we can't tell.

For the record, I was 15 when I started reading Slashdot.

It's easy to say that the ideas and hackerdom I found there significantly changed the course of my life.

Here's to today's 14- and 15-year olds!

Political (not policy) cheer leading is an excellent indicator that someone can't think.

Hopefully, as long as we keep HN free of politics we'll avoid redditization.

Actually I think it's the lack of moderation. Reddit was (is) very proud not to be moderated, and look where it got them.

I've seen you moderate submissions here, and I appreciate it.