Better Looking Hacker News

If I made a website, just like Hacker News, but looked much much better, would you convert from Hacker News? I've noticed that Hacker News is just a basic website and feel like I could do better. Don't get me wrong...I LOVE Hacker News. I just feel I could do a much better job.

Not trying to be an ass, but to replicate HN you would need to be a startup incubator using your HN style site to help you screen applicants. Otherwise, it's just a forum. Feel free to make a prettier forum. But I doubt it will attract the right kind of people to genuinely improve on HN.

Best of luck though.

People come here for the submissions (on-topic, non-fluff, genuine upvotes) and discussion (civil, educational, interesting). To create a superior HN you would have to improve on those features first or it's a non-starter.

It's unlikely you could improve on those though. HN has network effects (i.e. HN is popular because HN is popular). Unless PG drops the ball with HN, by letting it get overrun with poor content for example, there's just not much room for a competitor, and that doesn't seem likely.

Just a thought but most of what gets submitted to HN is not of interest to me since I'm not technical so I would definitely enjoy a site like HN that had non-technical, thought-provoking content (like the articles and comments I do read here). Like other say, though, it's not about the design, it's about the people and what they have to add to the mix.

You will have a hard time attracting the quality people HN has. This is the advantage Ycombinator has over you.