[colechristensen]

I think any improvements would make this site worse.

It is so very common for projects to inflate with new features until they become useless piles of filth. The fact that HN is a bit clunky is a feature not a bug. It will only attract and retain a certain type.

[muellerwolfram]

You probably meant it slightly differently, but improvements that make things worse are per definition not improvements.

I get that people don't want HN to get worse than it is. But i don't get why people think open sourcing it would result in that.

I trust PG would be the kind of project lead who only accepts pull requests that would actually improve the site.

And I trust the community has a lot of smart people who would come up with solutions that would actually improve this site.