alt Hacker NewsIt is just a few people. Any time people are unpleasant to others or post in an uninteresting way I add them to a personal list that filters out their comments. Rapidly the site becomes more usable. The negativity is from a few highly polarized individuals.
I know others also do this - though often they are kind enough to auto-fold.
> ... I add them to a personal list that filters out their comments.
I think this would be a very useful feature to add to HN itself. I nearly emailed dang a few weeks ago to suggest it myself rather than roll my own browser extension to do it, though maybe it's my own responsibility to roll my own software too.
The Gearspace forums (vBulletin based?) have an "Ignore User" feature that helps make that forum vastly more tolerable.