Hah, wow. A post with an ID under 10k. Meanwhile this one is over 47M.
I didn't realize I've been reading HN nearly its whole existence. For all my complaining about what's happened to the internet since those days, HN has managed to stay high quality without compromising.
I think a big reason is you are not notified when someone replies to your comment. It reduces heated back and forth arguments.
Instead, the reply/rebuttal almost always comes from a new person. It makes nice reading when you have 6 people in an argument keeping each other honest vs 2.
Interesting, I hadn't considered that! You're probably right.
Also submissions with more comments than upvotes are looked into, if not outright automatically flagged.
At least, here the biases are well known. I have been here since the beginning as well. :)