Once I read more of Dang's moderation comments I realized how deeply he cares about HN. He takes time to explain his view point (which can also change over time), he answers emails, he develops new features to fight spam. I value that more than changing the website layout, dark-mode, font-size.
Only thing I think they should implement proper responsive design so that you can have the width of the window less than 800px or whatever without getting overflow. I think at around 500px it switches to mobile view, so there's a gap in between when you have a horizontal scroll bar.
I suppose my honeymoon phase was when I was learning Ruby and a lot more articles about it were being upvoted. It was a great source of information and the comments a window into the assumptions that I would need to learn to either adopt or empathize with.
These days there are so many nice language- and domain-specific roundup newsletters that I mainly enjoy HN for the odd technical stories I never expected to read that day. I also enjoy watching dang moderate; he is gifted.
I’m still in the honeymoon phase with Ruby, by the way.
I still like it. I think there's some glaring flaws. HN seems to glass cannon - it's probably top 0.1% in tech, but below average in a lot of things. You find the topics where Sturgeon's Law kicks in and stay far away from them.
Reading HN since 2009 even though I created an account in 2012 (wow, a decade now). I don't think much has changed for me as far as HN is concerned. Wouldn't call it honeymoon phase since it is permanent :)
Examples
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24310804
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392943
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15151627