Ask HN: How to build something better than HN?

Community and heavy sensible moderation.

A community is important, the initial community here was the readers of the pg blog. StackOverflow has a similar origin, the readers of JoelOnSoftware and CodingHorror.

In spite of the plain appearance and the lack of explicit meta discussion, this site is extremely heavily moderated. But it's important to have a sensible moderation, not a crazy arbitrary moderation. The line between to few moderation and too much moderation is very thin ...

Define 'better than'?

Your first step is to get a clear set of requirements, the only reason competitors ever emerge is because of a failing or perceived failing of the incumbent.

So you must think HN is doing something wrong, or could be doing something better?

Define "better"