I assure you, this isn’t the reason. And I’m saying that as someone who once put all their effort into maintaining a clone of HN, mostly out of curiosity. HN i

I assure you, this isn’t the reason. And I’m saying that as someone who once put all their effort into maintaining a clone of HN, mostly out of curiosity. HN is the most responsive message board in the world. And by responsive I mean you feel the effect of upvotes and downvotes instantly. There is caching, but almost none of it is at the expense of the feel of the site. This is unlike Reddit, where although votes do have a quick effect, the algorithm is much simpler and less sensitive to sudden shifts in public opinion. On HN you can win and lose debates in a matter of minutes, and it’s thanks to the responsiveness that large websites seem not to have.