Do top HN comments have a “tone” that is different from those elsewhere?
For example, given the first sentence of a top comment, would you be able to tell with high probability whether it came from HN or reddit? And if so, how?
Unfortunately, the top comments on both sites tend to select for low-hanging fruit and easy karma. The tone for Reddit is humor, and the tone for HN is outrage or blithe dismissal.
When people speak without weasel words[0] and assume the role of an expert they are taken seriously, but that's more a rhetoric and didactic tone / style of writing that you see on here. Vague statements without any backing or citations are usually frowned upon / downvoted.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word
There's far less likely to be an off hand, low effort comment here, because they are frowned upon. At least half of the responses I write here get nuked before I hit the "add comment" button.