HN community, culture and politics (and also its moderation) are very Silicon Valley / US centric. This comes through especially on non-technical (but relevant) topics, like regulation. But also topics like company culture are extremely US-centric.
Localized topics (both in terms of content and culture) is probably the only reason why an HN-like site would be viable.
From my perspective it's definitely desirable, and just the current frontpage of technews.london confirms that there is a lot of stuff that will never make it to SV-centric HN.
I'd love to have a local HN to see what's going on in my country's scene.
I think HN clones like this should always be encouraged.
And that is only possible b/c it's a marketing expense which will generate its return by attracting lucrative start-ups to YC.
So it's done for the community after all!
Also didn't know there was a ".london" TLD, but I'm not following such things very closely. It seems anything is a TLD these days.
Clicking on a story's link opens a new tab. This site doesn't work like that, which is very confusing since it breaks the pattern and creates confusion.
Probably only matters if you think your users are going to be readers of both sites, but that does seem rather likely to me, at least.
The London site isn't minimal. It looks distractingly busy and over-designed.
Unimpressed by the content too, but I think that's maybe more a function of the infamous forgettability of the Shoreditch scene. (I find it hard to get excited about startups that help you get your ironing done. But maybe that's just me.)
