> 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?
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?
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.
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?