I'd say HN is fairly healthy. As others have pointed out, it's relative, but HN is definitely healthier than, say, Slashdot, or many Reddit subs. That said, the

I'd say HN is fairly healthy. As others have pointed out, it's relative, but HN is definitely healthier than, say, Slashdot, or many Reddit subs. That said, there are subs on Reddit that I consider healthy, but that's a separate issue. What makes a forum "healthy" to me? I'd say a few things stand out to me (this list is not comprehensive, mind you). 1. The question "do I learn something from interacting here?" In the case of HN the answer is very often "yes". Now, by "learning" I don't mean "mastering" anything. I just mean "I learned about some person, topic, resource, book, article, field, etc., in a way that deserves further exploration and may be of benefit to me." That happens quite often here, both from the submitted links and the ensuing discussion. 2. Do I take away anything actionable? Again, quite often yes. The action may be "bought this book based on a recommendation", or "downloaded this new framework to start experimenting with it", or whatever, but I definitely find actionable, valuable information here. 3. Is there an absence of most racist / misogynistic / jingoistic / xenophobic / bigoted rhetoric, conspiracy theories, complete snake oil, etc? Mostly I find the answer to be "yes". You will see accusations of misogyny here from time to time in certain threads, and you may see little flare ups of nationalistic sentiment or whatever ever now and then, but on balance I find HN to be pretty good in that regard.