Reddit and HN can be alright, but they are a shadow of what was normal back in usenet's glory days. Some sub-reddits can be quite good, especially with heavy mo

Reddit and HN can be alright, but they are a shadow of what was normal back in usenet's glory days. Some sub-reddits can be quite good, especially with heavy moderation, but they have all of the problems of usenet except worse. Most discussions on HN/reddit have a 48-hour time horizon, if that, whereas usenet could easily support threads lasting for weeks or months, with obvious effects on the quality of discussion. Also, web-based discussion makes it difficult to get rid of the clutter of read messages and manages threading poorly so discussions that were perfectly fine when everyone was using newsreaders would today be unwieldy.