If you're fine with more general topics and about a day's delay in "breaking" internet news (re: stuff that doesn't matter), I've found MetaFilter to be good. The pay wall filters out bottom-barrel trolls and the community is mostly nice enough to shame bigoted and extremist bullshit.
>>ceol+(OP)
I've become a fan of the micro-paywall. A one-time fee of $5-10 is an amazingly powerful filter.
Metafilter, as you said, is one example. Another is the Ruby Rogues Parley mailing list (now Discourse site). I can only imagine what a HN with similar filtering-of-the-noise would be like.