There are a lot of incredibly frustrating, problematic, and exasperating opinions and personality types to be found on HN. The particular members of any of those sets will differ based on the eyes of the beholder.

There's no shortage of passive aggression, angst, oneupsmanship,virtue signaling, dogwhistling, etc. It just so happens that there's a sufficient about of incredibly useful opinions and comments from subject matter experts that make it worth consuming in spite of the fact that it's a forum on the internet, and all of the baggage that entails.

(side note: this isn't intended as a dig on HN moderation - you probably all do a better job than most other venues. kudos.)

I find HN with its moderation to be night and day difference from many other forums.

100% agree, which I do not take for granted. Niche communities in reddit used to be that way. Not it's an overwhelming abundance of low effort content like "me too", "tree fiddy", "and then I took an arrow to the knee"

I think there are still don't good niche subreddits. They just may not be the ones they used to be. Like Twitter, Reddit benefits from grooming.

Most rely on volunteer moderators who also happen to be active members. The two roles are not exactly compatible.

Then maybe those models aren't as good?