I used to waste so much time on techcrunch, venturebeat, techmeme, slashdot, google news, mashable, engadget and the likes. But, thanks to HN, not anymore. :)
1) The groupthink that arises in certain political/scientific/social debates. I find that the nontech debates here are more uniform and less varied than they are on sites with similar quality.
2) While the site's filtration is good, the fact that its only two lenses are "news" and "jobs" makes the community less flexible and, frequently, less engaging.
It's still easily a top three social news site, though, so I'll resume my lurking and quit being a pest.
I so far gravitate toward other sites to balance my conversational diet.
3) generally very thoughtful discussion in the comments.
(Ads are value-neutral for me, incidentally.)
(More interesting is how these things fluctuate. At one point, the "ur gay" comment was around +8, and my "die in a fire, rtard" was pretty close. Now they are both -4.)
Edit: added 2nd "net"
2. I love that this is a community where smart people help other smart people navigate life, from deciding what to major in, to picking a database server, to dealing with an unruly roommate.
1) Subject Matter of the articles. for the most part the articles on here are right on target in what I am interested in.I know lately there has been talk of some cruft getting through, but for the most part the quality of articles to make it to front page is high.
2) Community I find that the community here is respectful and the members tend(and their comments) to be quite knowledgeable and highly focused. The community in general is a positive one.
A few seconds before I saw this question, I saw the link to "The Economics of Suicide". Surely a recipe for content-free emoting, that I would usually ignore ... but with 20 up-votes on a Saturday night. And I'm better off for having read it.
I still skim Slashdot, too. That's just a different selection of things I wouldn't have otherwise seen, but sometimes enjoy.
1. I don't have to be in a vacuum anymore. If I read something on the internet and form an opinion about it, I can post it here and see what others think. I can also comment on any discussion, and soon enough I'll probably get feedback. I simply don't have that many people in my life with whom I can have this interaction about things I care about.
2. I don't have to be alone. I usually work from home alone for long hours. Some days, being one alt-click away from like minded people keeps me going.
Also, the amount of cross-disciplinary knowledge the community brings to bear on most issues is pleasantly humbling.
2. Good quality, helpful, useful comments with very few idiots.
But the thoughtful and insightful discussion by like-minded developers is a breath of fresh air.
And the level of discourse here is better than most places, but the time decay of stories (and comments) leads to quick bursts of discussion near the top, followed by dead silence.
There could still be more improvement in this, but the current baseline is not bad.
2. People help each other! (Ask HN, website feedback, participating in betas, etc)
1. Good quality links (less fluff, and good links are often more visible here) 2. Good quality comments.
* Community
* Quality of Comments