I am just gonna say that I think Metafilter is a much healthier place than HN.
I favor hacker news over metafilter specifically because this place is less of a community of familiars. On metafilter the spirit of ingroup/outgroup behavior and the bullying that comes with that is intense. I barely even contribute there but the amount of nasty, mean spirited and passive aggressive interaction there is depressing. Lots of people like the idea of metafilter until they actually try to contribute in good faith and see the result.
Quality and quantity seem to be inversely related in social media.
Plus, all of the things Metafilter "doesn't do well" (a list which grows), the departure of the old guard (if they were not run out of town), and so forth.