It's a stopgap at best and more likely a no-op. The fundamental problem is that the 'community' is unbounded and prone to instability by growth. This is not the case with just HN but almost any online forum, be it USENET, slashdot, reddit, etc. The initial and early populations tend to have a lot in common, are significantly self-selecting, etc, etc. This produces 'interesting' content, which in turn fuels growth which fuels further growth and the eventual dilution of the 'community' and the quality of the content. Such forums experience only growth pressure but nothing in the opposite direction, at least not until they become so boring or insipid that people go somewhere else. Naive voting schemes like in slashdot, reddit or HN don't really help.

cool I can save a ton of money on a used shipping container. Do these guys not realize that HN is no-follow?

They spam with such mass they probably don't even care.