Proposal:
1. When a link is submitted, it doesn't actually appear on HN until a certain (fixed?) time T has elapsed after its first submission.
2. Everyone who submits it within that time is noted.
3. Karma from article upvotes is shared equally between all those users. (Or perhaps unequally in a way that weights earlier submitters slightly more highly -- but not winner-takes-all as at present.)
4. If the same link has been submitted N times before time T elapses, the delay is truncated at that point.
Effects:
1. There's very little incentive to submit something super-quickly. Therefore, there's more incentive to read it carefully first. (Good.)
2. Super-quick submitters don't hurt slower submitters' karma so much. (Good.)
3. Submissions no longer have hugely higher potential karma gain than comments, as they do at present. (Good.)
4. "Obvious" submissions probably no longer give anyone very much karma. (Good.)
5. Breaking news doesn't appear on HN as quickly as it does now; but if lots of people are submitting it, it still gets in pretty fast. (Maybe good, maybe bad.)
I think that with suitable choices of T and N -- perhaps 1 hour and 20, or thereabouts -- this would be a considerable improvement on what we have now.
I like this suggestion. Slowing down HN wouldn't be a bad outcome as well; PG has mentioned he doesn't want it to be too addictive.
On the other hand, I'm not clear if would slow things down that much, so much as delay. In any event, this isn't a breaking tech news source for many obvious reasons.