Comment by d--b

The issue is that there is more HN submissions than the community is able to process. But you could say the same of the front page, which is mostly a fairly small sample of the good stuff that go through /new

So you could treat Show HN as the same. Like what gets floated on /show is only a small sample of the good stuff in /shownew and be fine with the idea that a lot of the good Show HN just slip through the crack. Which seems to me like the best alternative. Possibly with a /showpool maybe?

You could split Show HN into categories, but you'd have done it by now if you thought it a good idea.

You could also rate Show HN submissions algorithmically trying to push for those projects that have been around longer and that look like more effort has been put into them, but I guess that's kind of hard.

Or you'd have to hire actual people to pre-sort the submissions, and gut all the ones that are not up-to-par. In fact, if there was a human-based approval system for new Show HN, you'd possibly get a lot fewer submissions and more qualitative ones, which in itself would make the work of sorting through them simpler.