[gamble]

I think it's just the size of the audience drawn in by a social news site. HN was an uncommonly polite place when it was first launched and largely populated by people with links to YC. I'd guess the vast majority were programmers or tech startup business types at that point.

As HN grew, it regressed toward the mean. It still has a more respectful and intelligent community than reddit, for example, but there's a more reddit-like tendency to attack than there was in the early days.

My theory is that there's a non-linear relationship between community size and disrespect. Small online communities can maintain a respectful tone, but once disrespect creeps in it tends to provoke a similar response, and a vicious circle is created. The larger the community, the harder it is to suppress those kernels of disrespect.

[rapind]

Sure. The presence of consequences. You can apply the same theory to physical community sizes. If you're going to run into the same guy every day, there's motivation to get along.