It worked surprisingly well long into "popularity" - at least for the purposes of getting spam removed and corralling flame bait away.
For a "user-run" site it was pretty advanced at the time - you could choose your level to view at (5 was quick summary of the highlights, -1 if you wanted flamewars about NetBSD), stories were curated enough to prevent slop (at least at the beginning), and metamoderating removed the biggest abuses.
For a "user-run" site it was pretty advanced at the time - you could choose your level to view at (5 was quick summary of the highlights, -1 if you wanted flamewars about NetBSD), stories were curated enough to prevent slop (at least at the beginning), and metamoderating removed the biggest abuses.