Community and heavy sensible moderation.<p>A community is important, the initial community here was the readers of the pg blog. StackOverflow has a similar origin, the readers of JoelOnSoftware and CodingHorror.<p>In spite of the plain appearance and the lack of explicit meta discussion, this site is extremely heavily moderated. But it's important to have a sensible moderation, not a crazy arbitrary moderation. The line between to few moderation and too much moderation is very thin ...
Define 'better than'?<p>Your first step is to get a clear set of requirements, the only reason competitors ever emerge is because of a failing or perceived failing of the incumbent.<p>So you must think HN is doing something wrong, or could be doing something better?