I'd say that's the main thing. People hate ads, HN uses unobtrusive text ads. The moderation isn't that a competitive advantage, IMO. Slashdot's was better, mostly because it had measures to stop moderation abuse whereas HN seemingly doesn't. It's just a plain old up/down system with the added filip of a "super down" button, for those who are really committed to banning their opponents. I read with showdead turned on because perfectly reasonable comments are so often greyed out or dead. That used to happen much less on Slashdot because there were far fewer people with moderation rights and the bad ones got filtered out via metamod.
Maybe now it's been ported to Common Lisp it'll be easier to add features.
Maybe now it's been ported to Common Lisp it'll be easier to add features.