No.
Reddit works for this because there are enough dumb questions to answer. Most of HN is too complicated to stick to simple concepts like asking Bill Gates "How much money is in your wallet?"
Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
131–140 of 187 posts
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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? I'd much rather just straight up ask him questions instead of waiting for him to appear.
Why would you wait for him to do an AMA, then? Can't we ask questions and get answers without the help of HN—say, via email?
Famous and quasi-famous people generally don't publish their primary email. The whole point of the AMA is that it offers a public forum in which anyone can ask anything to people with whom they generally wouldn't interact.
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#133This isn't Reddit. If HN can't attract interesting characters for an extended stay then it has already failed, and we can go pack our bags.
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#134Yes! Not only technologists, but founders, CTO's, engineers at big companies, etc. etc.
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#135I think the benefit would be that people will ask more in-depth subject questions rather than "getting-to-know-you" type questions (to which we would get answers too short to satisfy).
I think HN has become increasingly focused on people rather than ideas and this would exacerbate the problem. IMO this should be news FOR hackers, not news ABOUT hackers.
AMAs would also largely be posted by people with a self-promotional interest (for the benefit of either themselves or their company) and upvoted by their voterings. Reddit AMAs seem like much more of a favor to the audience in comparison.
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
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? Because the odds of getting Famous Joe Blow X to run a HN AMA are much, much higher than getting him to become an active HNer. We're talking about a one-time commitment versus extended involvement in our community. Look at the roster of AMA guests on Redd…
> EDIT: wait what, downvote? For speaking the truth? Calm your self:) It can happen easily by accident from things like small buttons on mobile devices. Your comment has a positive score, isn't that enough of a positive signal?
The down arrow makes voting pretty much impossible on mobile devices. Can I get 18 downvotes here so my karma will be below 500 and I won't have to put up with the down arrow anymore?
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
To me, it would be ideal if AMAs were split off into their own site, rather than piggybacking off HN or Reddit. Same with ELI5. (Also, the meta-implications of the fact that this poll is asking about AMAs rather than ELI5 amuses me.)
ELI5: what are the meta implications that amuse you - for someone that just had to google "ELI5" :) (explain like I'm 5)
I too had to lookup ELI5 and am at a complete loss regarding any implications, meta or otherwise.
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#138Why don't we let Reddit be Reddit, and HN be HN? 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. :)
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? Because the odds of getting Famous Joe Blow X to run a HN AMA are much, much higher than getting him to become an active HNer. We're talking about a one-time commitment versus extended involvement in our community. Look at the roster of AMA guests on Redd…
"Because the odds of getting Famous Joe Blow X to run a HN AMA are much, much higher than getting him to become an active HNer"
However, if Mr. Blow is not going to be active on HN anyway, what is the advantage of an AMA on HN over one on Reddit? And since the goal is to have Mr. Blow answer questions, what evidence is there that he is more likely to do so on HN than Reddit?
What makes HN great is not really fucking smart people answering fifteen questions of varying quality in 90 minutes. It's RFSP spending 90 minutes answering one really good question.
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some folks want HN to be sort of a super subreddit.
We already have a site for that, it's called Reddit. I get the impression that most HNers are also Redditors, so doing AMAs on Reddit makes more sense than trying to make HN into Reddit.
If anything I its 50/50 (overlap/strictly-HN), and I think that's being generous.
Re: Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?
#140William Shatner had an interesting comment on Reddit when asked about doing an AMA.
Basically he said he'd rather hang out and naturally interact with the audience rather than do a hit and run AMA for an hour then never come back.