Sometimes. Not always. I do know I almost always find the answer I need, and someone has already asked it, so no need for me to write anything. I also don't care if it's closed as a dupe, since all I care about is whether it answers my question, not about reputation or status. I even contributed some useful answers!

Did I get into pointless back and forths with aggressive users (and of course, sometimes I was the one in the wrong)? Sure! But so have I here on HN. I'd say of the last 5 years or so, the worst, most aggressive, and draining flamewars I've been involved in were here, in HN. Much worse than StackOverflow.

Would you say HN is useless or failing because of this? I wouldn't!