The quality of experience, technical knowledge, curiosity, moderation, and general conflict-free discussion along with a style of site that intentionally dissua

The quality of experience, technical knowledge, curiosity, moderation, and general conflict-free discussion along with a style of site that intentionally dissuades a mainstream audience [1] is what I've always seen as setting HN apart. Frequently HN will be the source of many unique insights into stories, personal anecdotes from those familiar with companies mentioned, and other tidbits that often can't be found elsewhere. Low quality posts on the other hand such as fluff replies, memes, or the odd rude post will get downvoted or simply not upvoted to demonstrate to others it's not something the community wants to see, with more thoughtful posts especially from those with experience in a topic rising to the top and sparking engaging discussions and questions. I appreciate that all users until they reach a certain karma level don't see a downvote button. Rather than downvote something to influence the order of comments most users will upvote ones they like, which is subtly a more positive system. Over time all these things cultivate a certain culture that spreads and attracts other like minded users. All this and the community has still managed to not become generally snarky, patronizing, or too insular itself. The life experience, focus on more technical topics, along with still retaining some humor helps. [1] Paul Graham: "So the most important thing a community site can do is attract the kind of people it wants. A site trying to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. But a site aiming at a particular subset of users has to attract just those—and just as importantly, repel everyone else. I've made a conscious effort to do this on HN. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles. The goal is that the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time should be the ideas expressed there." http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://paulgraham.com/hackernews.html