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Smarter and more insightful commentators.

That's pretty much it. Once the population gets too big and the level of discourse too low, the intelligent people will move to greener pastures with better signal:noise ratios. Slashdot's moderation system didn't save them, and HN's moderation system won't either.

I've yet to see a comment system that promotes signal:noise ratio over groupthink.

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Exactly, HN works because of it's audience. This leads to weird incentives though, promoting HN to widely might worsen it by diluting the 'good' audience. Not to forget the discussion about who is part of the 'good' audience, that discussion is bound to be toxic.

So you don't think HN has groupthink?

Doesn't every groupthink community describe themselves as "Smarter and more insightful commentators"? I'm pretty sure Trump or Clinton voter websites consider their signal-to-noise high and everyone else's low.

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