I have a feeling this is has been talked to death, but i haven't seen it.

What is the range for core-member group size for which Slinkset/Reddit/HN - like is advisable. Naturally, there's a lot of squeeze room depending on the activity of member but... Anyone have upper/lower limits?

That's a really good question. We've got some data to that end, but don't have a definitive answer yet.

My sense so far is that surprisingly few people can make it work, but the interaction changes a bit. With everyone using feed readers the site can move at much slower pace than something like news.yc. We use slinkset internally w/ just 2 people and it's helpful, but again it's a slightly different format (e.g. we disable voting for that).

I see what you mean. Naturally, there are various uses for the system, especially with minor variations. But what I really meant was as a social news site.

BTW, do you have any sense of ceilings?