[pants2]

There's perhaps no better site than HN to be open source and allow community improvements. Why isn't it?

[krapp]

That would lead to feature creep and bloat and undermine the minimalist purity of the layout. They do make improvements to the forum, but only on their own schedule and very selectively. Hacker News is a cathedral, not a bazaar.

[codingdave]

HN runs all kinds of algorithms to help with spam, moderation, etc. Being open source would derail all the benefits gained from that code.

[krapp]

Also, I think dang once mentioned there's a lot of business code for YC tangled up in the forum that they would have to remove.

[paulcole]

HN is a marketing campaign for a VC firm. Closed and controlled is a benefit.

Would Coca Cola or Walmart open source their ads?

[compootr]

I don't agree. amyone with literally zero skill could host a webforum or link sharing site. The value isn't the software, but its users. I think the reason another commenter said is correct too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42678416

[uncomplexity_]

people will game the algos

simple as that