Hmmm... in general, not too much in favor of reactions. Either one was something thoughtful to say, either one has not. In the latter, a few sats, either as up or downvote, can play the same role as a reaction smiley.

What made HN better than most platforms is that thoughtful conversation was encouraged. What made Reddit crap is that trying to be funny and making those typical "Reddit threads" discouraged people to put real effort.

Reactions might have similar negative effects.

All this is an example of something i did not think through carefully... I'm sure you guys did much more brainstorming on this.

Overall, I don't expect drastic changes, just those little incremental improvements that make the experience here better day by day. Like those few small GitHub issues I've posted. Having MathJax support for instance was a gamechanger for me.

Curious about the future subterritories though...