I agree. There are a lot of thing that are important, it's not only a simple UI.
On important part is the moderation to keep the discussion civil and measures against spam and voting rings. This is invisible and sometimes difficult to spot, most people just notice only the good quality of the discussion.
Another important point is the community. It's important to attract and keep a good and wide community. For most topics, you'll find here one or two experts that can comment to counter balance the hype of the article and answer the unclear details. Sometimes the comments are better than the article.
> Sometimes the comments are better than the article.
Yup, and the first few weeks when I first discovered HackerNews from Google search results a number of years ago, if it wasn't an "Ask HN" I'll admit I didn't know there was an article -- the comments were good enough not to miss it!
On important part is the moderation to keep the discussion civil and measures against spam and voting rings. This is invisible and sometimes difficult to spot, most people just notice only the good quality of the discussion.
Another important point is the community. It's important to attract and keep a good and wide community. For most topics, you'll find here one or two experts that can comment to counter balance the hype of the article and answer the unclear details. Sometimes the comments are better than the article.