HN certainly does a better job than reddit or facebook. Is it just because HN is smaller or more niche? Some subreddits are tiny and operate well.
I compare r/netsec to r/sysadmin. Netsec is about 426k members with 375 online. Sysadmin is 641k and 2.9k online. The difference tends to be moderation; r/sysadmin does moderation significantly better than r/netsec. Hence the much better community.
The challenge that HN has over r/sysadmin however is rigid topic. You're never going to see climate change or religion in r/sysadmin. That makes their job much easier.
Which makes HN so much more interesting because it tends to allow the challenging subjects like climate change. In fact you tend to get climate change as a subject almost every day. How does it work? Those challenging subjects simply don't have conversation. No risk for flame if everyone agrees with each other.
I compare r/netsec to r/sysadmin. Netsec is about 426k members with 375 online. Sysadmin is 641k and 2.9k online. The difference tends to be moderation; r/sysadmin does moderation significantly better than r/netsec. Hence the much better community.
The challenge that HN has over r/sysadmin however is rigid topic. You're never going to see climate change or religion in r/sysadmin. That makes their job much easier.
Which makes HN so much more interesting because it tends to allow the challenging subjects like climate change. In fact you tend to get climate change as a subject almost every day. How does it work? Those challenging subjects simply don't have conversation. No risk for flame if everyone agrees with each other.