HN Explorer

Poll: Would HN benefit from Reddit's AMA-style posts from technologists?

433 points by daenz ↗ HN
On Reddit, just from this month alone, there have been some great AMAs that I personally think HN would be great participants in:

Stevin Levitt from Freakonomics http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18tp7t/i_am_steven_levitt_author_of_freakonomics_ask_me/

Bill Gates http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/

Peter Sunde of ThePirateBay http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/187iwo/i_am_peter_sunde_cofounder_of_tpb_ama/

SpaceX Software Engineers http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1853ap/we_are_spacex_software_engineers_we_launch/

Do you think this this is something we could start on HackerNews?

186 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 238 ms ] thread
stephengillie
Isn't that what Quora was made for? To have longer Q&A style discussions with other HNers and (legitimate) technology celebrities?

Edit: I guess the downvotes mean I'm wrong?

duggieawesome
Ha. Quora's signin/signup wall is enough for me not to use it.
stephengillie
The modal signup wrapper? If I want to read the article, I'll pull it out with console.
achompas
Quora is most definitely not for this, although it's a potential side effect. I'd argue it's actually the opposite: by design, Quora focuses on a single question open to answers by any number of users that do not have to be the question's target.
meritt
Quora is basically Experts Exchange 2.0. One of the biggest letdowns given the build-up and expectations it once had.
adelevie
Why this poll? I'm sure there'd be no problem if tomorrow morning we see "I'm #{@name}, founder of #{@awesome_thing}, AMA".
trbs
I'd imagine the main reason is just to promote the idea so people with connections might ask their connections to do an AMA.
ChuckMcM
Some folks want HN to be sort of a super subreddit.
cabalamat
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.
dfc
If anything I its 50/50 (overlap/strictly-HN), and I think that's being generous.
ChuckMcM
That was sort of the point, except that it doesn't stop people from wanting a higher level of discourse/participant on Reddit or more Reddit features on HN.
nathanpc
I like the idea of having AMAs here in HN.
tcdent
I think you wanted the first option of the poll: "Yes"
davidw
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.
greendestiny
And I'd rather they didn't think about going on HN as doing some media. Maybe we've reached that point anyway, but that would be a shame.
enraged_camel
Problem is that it's not immediately obvious who they are just from their usernames. So it's easy to skip over their contributions.
lmm
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.
enraged_camel
>>Posts should rise or fall on their own merits, not who has made them.

Not necessarily. On a site like this, where everyone has strong opinions on something, credibility matters. For example, I have only a rudimentary knowledge of programming, so when I read a post about JavaScript or something, I want to be able to quickly know whether the person is talking out of their ass or whether their opinion is backed up by experience and accomplishment.

waterlesscloud
I usually find if I can't tell the difference based on the post and its replies, it's irrelevant to me anyway.
elliottcarlson
Though there is often hive mind behavior based on who posts. There are some 'HN celebrities' that certainly deserve the respect they get - they are knowledgable people with great opinions - the problem is they are not always right, nor are they always adding to the discussion in a useful way - yet they get upvoted to the top immediately even when a far better contribution to the post disappears further down.
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pseut
It takes about 2s to pull up their profile... If they want the recognition/credibility. Some comments I'll look, most I don't.
jamesrcole
It's not clear to me why AMAs would necessarily reduce their participation in the community, could you elaborate on that?
[dead] sirhacksalot
No, we need Reddit's r/gonewild instead
netaustin
I'm an infrequent enough Reddit user that their odd argot and mile-long discussions about ponies are really a disincentive for me to read past the intro to an AMA. Using HN for topically relevant AMAs provide a welcome relief from Reddit's tiresome fractals of inane comments.
guelo
The trick is to set reddit preferences to only show comments rated 10 or higher. That'll cut down on most of the garbage, though you'll still get a lot of highly rated "funny" posts. But you can just minimize a thread once it starts devolving into nonsense.
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codeulike
Here, I think it would end up more like "Argue with me about anything". Might still be fun though.
dm2
Maybe an "Discussion" section of HN and leave the main board for true "News"?
bsimpson
It could be interesting, but I think Reddit is much better suited to multi-party discussions than HN. Reddit's commenting system is easier to navigate (cf. the hide button).
nolok
As long as we don't get a daily AMA for every single startup founder out there ... Reddit already has quite a few of those amadverts.
naner
There's a lot of work and coordination (scheduling, moderation, proof) involved in the IAMA subreddit. I'm not sure we are interested in or capable of organizing all of that here.

Also reddit has a much wider audience. Having IAMA's here instead of reddit would only make sense for less widely known tech-centric folks.

Also keep in mind that there have been a couple sites (startups?) that tried to replicate the reddit IAMA format and basically they all went nowhere.

This is one thing reddit is pretty good at, that is hard to replicate, and that there is not much of a reason to replicate here.

recoiledsnake
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 has no means right now of highlighting the submitter of the post, unlike on Reddit.

rednukleus
I think signups are an interesting point. Nobody wants the site to be diluted too quickly and lose what makes it good, but I do think that a wider userbase would be a good thing for HN to stop it from being as much of an echo chamber as it often is.
mwilcox
A wider userbase only exacerbates the echo chamber, as the most popular, agreeable, easily consumed content rises to the top much faster.
bthomas
I'd rather focus on ideas than personalities. What about "ask me anything about X", where X is a software package/device/publication/etc.
pseut
As in [show hn]?
HunterV
Only if there was some way to monitor the quality of the people doing AMA.
dm2
Should this community worry about attracting the wrong crowd?

If everyone and their moms start getting attracted to this site then could that not start reducing the voting power of people who are actually interested in technology?

Listen, the only thing I'm trying to do is prevent this community from turning into Cats and Porn like reddit has become.

Lots of well known people participate in the discussion and will answer questions if you ask them.

Maybe HN needs better searching and filtering capabilities first.

paulkaplan
I would really appreciate that because I am a senior in college and I'm trying to figure out where I want to go and what type of job would be best.
jcroll
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.

BSousa
In all fairness, shouldn't this be something to ask pg about instead of a poll?
lessnonymous
I think the OP realises pg would not go for this easily, so by making a poll that's a ahem run away success the OP hopes to present pg with evidence.
DanielBMarkham
Why 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. :)

d0m
It can be both. An AMA is "Ask me anything" which is more focused on somebody (Or something that happened).. which is very different than the same person posting a meaningful comment on a discussion. As far as I know, PG regularly comments on HN and there are often links to his essay or interviews. An AMA isn't so much different than an interview...
saraid216
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.)

antoko
ELI5: what are the meta implications that amuse you - for someone that just had to google "ELI5" :)

(explain like I'm 5)

dfc
I too had to lookup ELI5 and am at a complete loss regarding any implications, meta or otherwise.
saraid216
The implication is that HNers are more interested in Q&A sessions over what amounts to a lecture. You could frame that as positively or negatively as you like: a fixation on fame and fortune over substance; a disinterest in having someone else explain what you could learn on your own; a preference for an interactive setting rather than a receptive one; etc.
antirez
Many AMAs are not about famous people, but just people that are in a position you would love to ask them questions, in general or because of some specific news / event in the world or alike. With that I don't want to say that AMAs are necessarily good for HN.
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achompas
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 Reddit. How many of them are active Redditors? It's non-zero, but not substantially so. And yet, by participating in AMAs, they enrich Reddit's community.

EDIT EDIT: removed some belly-aching

chollida1
> 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?

kens
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?
_delirium
> by participating in AMAs, they enrich Reddit's community

That's the part I'm skeptical of, at least keeping in mind what community means in the HN sense. They don't really seem to be part of the Reddit community at all; they're more like the "content" that the Reddit community is discussing any given day. What's more interesting about the HN community to me is that some pretty accomplished people are actually part of the community.

Given the quality of questions/answers in a typical AMA, I'm not even sure how it's different from just linking to an offsite TechCrunch interview. Is it just some kind of fuzzy feeling of having participated?

greendestiny
I agree, I think the fuzzy feeling sums it up. Celebrity AMA's are some of the most unenlightening things I've ever read. You get some obvious questions about obvious subjects and the answer is usually some variation of 'yeah that was great'. It should be no surprise either - its a conversation started with no premise. If someone consequential to an issue decides to comment on that issue it can be very very interesting. Hackernews still has that to some degree. Even if its gone, can we not resurrect it as this zombie?
prawks
> they're more like the "content" that the Reddit community is discussing any given day.

I think this sums them up nicely. This is also why I feel they would be out of place in a forum centered around discussion, like HN.

icoder
You could see an HN AMA as one person chiming in on multiple discussions in a short time (which may be much more doable for them), this depends on the questions asked, of course. And that is something HN hopefully regulates by itself.

Just since the 'setup' is the same, it doesn't mean the results will be the same. HN as a whole vs Reddit is proof of this on itself, I would say.

prawks
That's not a half-bad idea at all, actually.
goblin89
Can the possibility of one-time commitment reduce extended involvement ‘rate’, or otherwise negatively affect community (attract unexpected public, possibly)? Taking into account differences between the audiences of HN and Reddit.
pseut
I won't quote the belly aching, but it's relevant. Would reddit's AMAs work without "vigorous" downvoting?
brudgers
"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.

celticninja
i think a fair few are active redditors but they dont use their anonymous accounts for their AMA for obvious reasons. Perhaps not Woody Harrelson.

Of course there is the reverse, where Will Shatner didnt want to do an AMA as he intended to stick around on a daily basis as opposed to a "one night only" type of event. That sort of thing seems to be what HN would prefer (if it wasnt will shatner but someone more useful).

nyrulez
I think your estimate of their interest or availability regarding being a regular HN participant for some of these folks is is a bit misguided.
duaneb
> 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.

goblin89
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?
ruswick
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.
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greghinch
The level of discourse in HN comments is leaps and bounds better than that in Reddit. At the very least, you'd get a much more useful and legible comment thread. And presumably the topics would be more focused on the HN crowd, where as Reddit runs the gamut
jlgaddis
You are assuming that the Reddit crowd wouldn't participate in the HN AMAs.

Many probably would and, possibly worse, they might stick around.

uglytom
I agree. Even with my short time I have spent on HN, I find the place to be much more civil and information with less clutter than Reddit. Keep HN's identity strong and don't try to "copy" Reddit. I would think that if you allow a few AMAs it will quickly devolve as everyone would want to do an AMA.
JoshTriplett
AMAs still have to get upvoted and have questions posted. If J. Random Whoareyouagain posts an AMA, it'll either die in "new" with 2 points, or fall off the front page with 10 points and two comments.
Jplenbrook
Having the greatest technologists of our time answer our questions would be a huge distraction from the arguments over which language is better.
redthrowaway
HN AMAs would fill a niche that doesn't really exist elsewhere: the opportunity to have questions asked by an audience focussed on tech and entrepreneurship. Reddit's too mainstream to get questions about the things HNers tend to care about upvoted. I'd certainly appreciate the flavour that HN would bring to an AMA.
michael_nielsen
A way of addressing this would be to have a karma threshold before someone can do an AMA.
brudgers
My first reaction was similar. However, I realized that an HN AMA, need not mimic a Reddit AMA. I created a prototype HN AMA here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5250690

It doesn't seem to be very successful. Then again, I'm not that interesting.

fryed7
We ran AMA's on Inbound.org over the last month and they were a terrific success from an engagement point of view. They unearth fascinating content.

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.

drgath
Just create the AMA on http://reddit.com/r/hackernews and link to it from here. It keeps Reddit over on Reddit, but still provides interesting content for HN to link to.
The1TrueGuy
Well, the only way for that to work thematically is if the person is in fact a hacker. I use a pretty broad interpretation which would include Bill Gates but probably leave out Steven Levitt unless he was going to discuss/share the software tools he uses to arrive at his results. Also, more physical hackers like Adrian Bowyer of RepRap and some of the guys behind the Hacklabs and Hackerspaces.
SCdF
So the thing that struck me when I first started reading HN was that this place is a constant AMA with famous people!

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-...

DanielBMarkham
Yeah and I want to say this the right way, but I probably won't.

I don't give a shit who you are on HN. I'm here to collect useful stuff for the people I'm trying to help in my startups, not to get autographs. If you have something useful to contribute, thank you. I'll try to do the same. Otherwise? Who you are, how much you make, how much you sold out for, all of that? Not so much.

This is just an awful, terrible, bad idea. Instead of us old-timers saying "Dang site! Turning into Reddit!" Now we're going to actively start trying to copy Reddit? WTF?

SCdF
In case it's not obvious from the juxtaposition of our two posts, I completely agree.

Having "tech famous" people on HN is great not because they're tech famous, but because they can provide the sorts of information that made them tech famous (as in, they're smart / knowledgeable). It's not important that they're famous, it's important that they can often provide insight into what we're talking about, because they were / are involved.

Reddit AMAs, when they're about a specific person (as opposed to a profession) seem to mostly be "You're awesome, I just wanted to ask, how did you get so awesome?" and variants.

rustynails77
>seem to mostly be "You're awesome, I just wanted to ask, how did you get so awesome?"

To be fair, that's why I come to HN instead of Reddit (which I NEVER visit). HN is an amazing site with many high quality posts - I think Reddit at the opposite end of the spectrum - because that's what it was when I last looked at it years ago.

A variant of this idea by the OP could work if it was handled correctly - for example, if Richard Branson was invited to talk about establishing successful corporate cultures. If there was an emphasis on a specific individual with a specific topic, then this could work.

Lastly, please don't turn HN into Reddit. I honestly believe this would kill the exact thing that makes this site unique.

charlieok
Was Reddit's AMA feature a result of paving the cowpaths?

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)?

nolok
AMAs where just post on /r/AskReddit for a long time until starting to grow on its own and becoming what it is now.
snowwrestler
Yes. At first the appeal of the AMA was the insight it provided into the lives of other redditors who just happened to have an interesting job or experience. It was only after it became "a thing" organically that it started to become a PR tool for celebrities and politicians--a direction that sadly seems to be accelerating.