it's both. Human moderation will always be an important factor. If you want larger communities to work well you need to put a proportionate effort of human attention in to maintain it, including bottom-up from users. Bot-autocracy is bad not just because it doesn't work well but also because it makes people feel alienated.
And the design is important too. There's no followers here, no monetization, no flashy upvote count, essentially no identity with a capital I. HN and sites like it work to a large part because there's no status or financial grift involved in posting, people largely just post to communicate. The exact opposite of what Twitter is turning into.
And the design is important too. There's no followers here, no monetization, no flashy upvote count, essentially no identity with a capital I. HN and sites like it work to a large part because there's no status or financial grift involved in posting, people largely just post to communicate. The exact opposite of what Twitter is turning into.