difference between digg/reddit and HN is that HN users typically actively police, and the application restricts functionality based on your karma. you're not allowed to do certain things unless you have a certain level of trust, which isn't the case on digg/reddit.
Actually I think the main difference is that Reddit is a business and HN is not.
Reddit's management should do whatever it takes to maximise revenue, and this often means going for the lowest (or at least lower) common denominator.
HN is different, it is not directly about making money, but about getting intelligent people to have civil doscussions on tech and entrepreneurship, presumably to market ycombinator.
This isn't very scalable. If HN's userbase were of the same size as Digg's or Reddit's and most of those people were unwanted (i.e., if a large group of Digg/Reddit users were to begin frequenting HN), it would not be able to prevent them from saying/doing as they pleased.
"the application restricts functionality based on your karma"
The karma is determined by other user's ratings, right? How well is that going to work if a majority of the users are similar to your average Digg/Reddit user?
One of the big differences that makes it possible for HN to maintain its civility is its relatively small size. So far, I have not seen any scalable methods of moderating a user-contributed link aggregation website. Therefore, I can only hope that Digg/Reddit users don't find out about HN (which is mostly a pipe dream).
i don't think you've been here long enough to know how this site works.
if somebody submits off-topic or spammy links, they will be killed. if somebody starts acting like a jerk, their account will be killed. it doesn't really matter what the average hn user thinks about it, they will be killed anyway.
the editors are very ruthless about this. it doesn't matter how many unruly users come here, they will either abide by the rules or they will be banned, period.
