In general terms HN manages to maintain a very high signal to noise ratio. This is a credit to pg, the rules he created as well as active HN participants. If you have spent any time at all on USENET you know exactly what I am talking about.

HN is always interesting to read. You can learn a lot from people posting on a variety of subjects while always tending to return to the core tech mission of the site. I enjoy this aspect a lot. And, yes, things go off in tangents sometimes yet HN has proven to self correct.

I don't really understand the focus on these comments.