Yes, I think Hacker News is plausibly the best general-purpose online discussion forum right now. It would not surprise me if it’s possible to do much better, though. As far as I can tell, most online discussion software is designed to maximize ad revenue (or some proxy like user growth/user engagement) rather than quality discussions. Hacker News is an exception because the entire site is essentially a giant advertisement to get people applying for Y Combinator, and higher-quality discussions make it a better-quality advertisement.
Yes, I think Hacker News is plausibly the best general-purpose online discussion forum right now. It would not surprise me if it’s possible to do much better, though. As far as I can tell, most online discussion software is designed to maximize ad revenue (or some proxy like user growth/user engagement) rather than quality discussions. Hacker News is an exception because the entire site is essentially a giant advertisement to get people applying for Y Combinator, and higher-quality discussions make it a better-quality advertisement.