In terms of features and intent HN is similar to Reddit. But HN is miles and miles ahead in the quality of discussion, moderation, and diversity of thought and opinions.

When compared to all of Reddit, sure. But not necessarily when compared to a high quality subreddit. And that is what you should be comparing HN to. HN is essentially a subreddit on a different domain.

>diversity of thought and opinions.

I don't think so, HN has a pretty specific audience. Just like reddit opinions that don't follow groupthink are often downvoted.

In political discussions on HN you usually see both sides represented and respected. That rarely happens on Reddit.

That is because H.N. has essentially only one sub board which could be called “technology”.

If the single board were about relationship advice, some identity politics subject, video games, or some pornographic theme, the quality would drop similarly.

Reddit's r/programming is, for instance, not all too bad but r/linux is a disaster, for it is quite close to identity politics.

Really impossible to compare. There are very good subreddits, even better than HN, and then there's stuff like r/The_Donald. HN is just a single community, reddit has tons.

It also just depends on your subject of interest and what tone of voice, humor, etc your are appreciative of.

r/The_Donald isn’t a thing

They built their own Reddit: https://patriots.win/

I agree only to the extent that HN only focuses generally on technology based discussions. I would also argue that Reddit has much more diverse thought and opinion, although not necessarily of high quality.

My point is that HN is lucky that it is small and focuses on a particular topic of discussion and therefore it is quality over quantity. Reddit is a beast and allows discussion around really anything that pleases people. But it is a victim of its size and really reflects problems with other social media platforms such as FB and Instagram where rigorous moderation is next to impossible at that scale at the moment.

Think of /r/Wallstreetbets as an example, a subreddit that went from around 2.5 Million subscribers to 8.8 Million subscribers in a week. How do you appropriately scale moderation to content like that.

HN is significantly better in its particular area of focus and somewhat worse in other areas. This is basically what you'd expect from a community with a narrower focus - HN hasn't done anything wrong on that front.

I would disagree on some of those. The quality of discussion is higher provided you don't mind the lack of humour. And the diversity of thoughts and opinions isn't that high because of the strict moderation. If you want true diversity of opinion, but far lower quality of discussion, 4chan is the place.

I wouldn't say miles and miles ahead. HN is consistently where Reddit was about 3 years ago.

I agree, but only to the extent that HN is really just a subreddit which focuses on technology/software engineering.

If HN grew significantly and wanted to enable more diverse conversation, it would essentially turn into a Reddit.

But how would that protect from bots if they took a meaningful interest in manipulating HN?

The minimum karma requirements to downvote goes a long way on HN. I’d say they should add a limit to upvote as well, but that might make things worse idk.

It would curb how easy it is to manufacture a popular post

>Could you not argue that HN is the same thing, just at a smaller scale? HN is essentially just a front page.

The more niche a community is the higher the bar to entry the less internet riff raff you get. The more one's past comments stick around the less inclined people are to type bullshit. Reddit is slightly better on average than 4Chan. HN is better at the extremes and on average than Reddit. But they're all crap compared to some niche forum you've never heard of where the guys who maintain diesel electric locomotives (or some other niche) hang out.

The more niche, the more the discussion is dominated by a group of die-hards, and the conversation averages a level that is difficult for newcomers. But, then, I suppose it's not any different than any other internet forum, or any actual group of people, for that matter.

Because HN is a single place, as opposed to subreddits, it's a weird mix of software developers, founders, investors, etc.

You could basically compare HN to a single subreddit.

I think of HN as the real life manifestation of the kind of discussion that would come up at a dinner party with a really, really, diverse group of people who all happen to spend most of their time in some tech-related career.