HN can(which is in question) maintain a relative high quality discussion towards a focused and limited subset of topics (tech, science and certain social issue like surveillance) is because it is a niche forum by default.<p>It is HACKER NEWS, rather than popular news. Reddit is just too board. However, certain subs are still pretty interesting and informational, until....it becomes popular.<p>So yes. Popular means low quality. It is sad, but inevitable..