[u48998]

It's not about minimal, it's about scope. I see HN as content-based system, where as, Digg and rest of the others went the route of social-based. The site where the content is the king, is still valuable versus the site where people are the king. There is a trade off with reputation of course, one has to first build the reputation and credibility before one can claim a solid content-based system.

If you recall, the problem started with Digg when people started gaming it. There were stories after stories of how people are gaming the system. This is when they first lost their credibility.

There is a fine line.