There is no database, except in the very general sense. Hacker News stores data as Arc lisp tables in flat files or in memory - in fact, the forum is meant to serve as a MVP for the language itself.
See my previous comment in this thread or search "Arc Lisp" and you can find the current distribution of the code and forum software HN is based on. But bear in mind Hacker News itself is somewhat proprietary for business reasons.
See my previous comment in this thread or search "Arc Lisp" and you can find the current distribution of the code and forum software HN is based on. But bear in mind Hacker News itself is somewhat proprietary for business reasons.