Not necessarily. I personally prefer Scott Alexander's criteria for commentary at SlateStarCodex (http://slatestarcodex.com/). A comment should be two of: True, kind, necessary.
Plenty of things cause near-visible sparks when you put them in discourse, and most of them are mean, pedantic, or just not true. You're interested in the set of comments which are true and necessary, this is a tiny subset of the comments which cause friction.
Some comments cause more friction than others, definitely, but are they of lesser merit for that reason alone? If something is true but not critical to know, and not 'kind', that doesn't mean that it just doesn't matter, right? Ugly truths are out there, and they can be of great use if confronted maturely, understood, and conquered.
Right?
What that does mean is that extreme or sustained harassment that makes people unhappy, fear for their lives, or feel like they can't participate isn't okay. Communities that exist solely for hate aren't cool. But disagreement and even voicing opinions that are very unfavorable can still exist. Saying mean things to people is okay, unless that's all you do all day following around a user or something. We all become better people when we can share our own perspectives and hear the perspectives of others, especially when they are different from our own. Otherwise you end up with an echo chamber.
We're also okay with Imzy not being a platform for everyone—nothing is! And if HN and Reddit work for you, great. We're not trying to replace them.
What we are trying trying to do is build something for people for whom those aren't working. And most of the things we're doing different don't actually have anything to do with harassment or positivity. We've focused on creating really diverse tools so that communities can exist and share however makes most sense for them and do the things that they need to do all in one place. We've built in a payments system. We've tried to make things a lot more user and mobile friendly, as the places you referenced can be intimidating and not intuitive to a lot of people. Those are the things I'm most excited about--all the things we're adding to community functionality, not what we're taking away.
Wait... isn't Imzy actually for children? Cutsy name, cutsy graphics, tight moderation. I thought this is basically the second coming of Gaia online.
I blame Snapchat.
I'm talking about things that people don't want to hear, but are relevant. Not kind, not necessarily necessary, but true.
Reddit already moderates discussions quite often, and the conversations there don't often reach the level of those here at HN, but still I wonder if maybe too much is too much when it comes to moderation.
I could say something totally offensive and uncalled for on HN, so long as I back it up with why it needs to be said. In other words, I'd argue that the narrative isn't all that matters when it comes to discourse.
Somewhat offtopic, when I look at their material and theming, I think about whether or not I think I'd find people there worth talking to, and that answer is no. ycombinator's landing page, or hell, even Reddit's front page, looks leagues more professional than the weird children's book graphics of Imzy.
I just don't understand what's to be gained in the utilitarian sense by telling people what they can and cannot contribute to a discussion. I really like the idea of just throwing it all out there and then gathering up and working on whatever sticks. Maybe that's why Reddit is semi-appealing.