31–40 of 187 posts
Why would I want HN to be a megaphone for Famous Joe Blow X when I'd much rather have him actively participating and helping out in the threads with the rest of us?
This is a very bad idea in my opinion. Since I have no clue how to run a busy site, that means it'll probably happen. :)
There are already a bunch of well known "technologists" who don't just show up to do one Q&A session, but regularly participate in the community, which is, IMO, even better.
Problem is that it's not immediately obvious who they are just from their usernames. So it's easy to skip over their contributions.
The idea sounds great, but there is a big caveat. I think it will draw a lot of crowd to HN, which PG wouldn't like. One one hand you need to keep the registrations open for newcomers to ask good questions, on the other hand a lot of signups will be from a section of Redditors not used to HN etiquette. I remember that signups are sometimes disabled on HN whenever there is a popular link to here from Reddit. Also, HN…
Dharmesh Shah's probably was the best example of what an HN audience might have asked: http://www.inbound.org/discussion/view/hi-i-m-dharmesh-shah-...
I love this kind of open media, open interviewing. Sometimes "regular interviews" bring up your burnings questions, or something else you find really interesting, but the chance to talk to real experts about questions specific to your interests is pretty damn cool.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem is that it's not immediately obvious who they are just from their usernames. So it's easy to skip over their contributions.
That can enhance the discussion. I remember making a spirited reply to Yudkowsky and only noticing who he was when he replied back - but I think my not being intimidated lead to a far more productive thread than if I had seen in the first place. Posts should rise or fall on their own merits, not who has made them.
Real people, real hackers, who've done impressive stuff, who aren't random bored teenagers in their boxers pretending to know about what they're waxing on about, comment here! People from Google, and MS, People who actually built the startup we're discussing, or are at the heart of the story that brought us here.
And they're here, not because they really just want to talk about Rampart[0], but because they're hackers too, and they want to contribute to the mass discussions happening every day on HN.
[0] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/woody-harrelson-reddit-...
From the HN guidelines: > If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.) I would suggest that if you do proceed with the AMA's that you amend the guidelines and remove that clause.
user: jcroll
created: 160 days ago
I'm thinking of it as something that organically sprouted from the community, and then became an institution. Kinda like hashtags and @-mentions on twitter.
If people post AMA submissions on Hacker News and they do well, great. That's a sign the users would like more of it. Or are these being actively discouraged by admins (e.g. by editing “AMA” out of titles)?