While I agree the signal to noise ratio has increased significantly since I first started frequenting YC News, I'm not sure I agree if its specifically the TechCrunch exposure that is the cause of this. My reason? I was actually reading this at school and I've had friends sign up who could really care less about anything about programming...and end up treating this site like its Slashdot. Perhaps similar episodes have occurred elsewhere?
When you say that the signal to noise ratio has increased, do you really mean that there's more signal? or did you mean that it's decreased? Not nit-picking, just trying to understand.
