No idea how influencial harlembiospace is, but with all those "HN Clones" these days it's worth pointing out that to build an "HN Clone" one should start with being a major player in the respective industry. Compared to that, putting up a forum software is nothing.

In the early days HN felt absolutely hardcore to me. Comments were clearly part of an extended (or future) Y-Combinator application (and last time I checked, the Y-Combinator application form is still asking for your HN account) and there was absolutely no bullshit.

This was particularly clear in discussions about games - they were strictly about the technical or sociological aspects, no one would ever admit to playing (everyone's working on their starup, right?). I remember the first tentative comments from the player's perspective being scoffed at, and even today I feel a little dirty in those EVE online threads, heh.

Point is, knowing that "pg" was watching has always ensured a high quality of comments, and indirectly made HN the place to be.