

Why do people like to comment here instead of the original post? - terryh

I know there are more people here. But it seems weird to me.
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vinnybhaskar
I am new to HN and this is my understanding based on modest time I have spent
here. Keeping discussions to HN helps keep them centralized. Secondly, there's
a community here. It's like discussing/debating a topic with your friends.
People know each other and have rapport within the community. There's a trust
factor when you are among friends and you know there's credibility in the
advice that's given out.

Commenting directly on posts is somewhat like walking into another group. You
are not part of that group. There's no trust factor.

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dalke
There are established accounts here. On an arbitrary link page, if comments
are supported, then they might support for anonymous accounts, or you have to
have your own account (with registered email/password), or use Disqus/Facebook
or other third-party comment system, or login through OpenAuth.

There might be user-preview and edit, or not.

It might have to go through an administrator review before posting.

There might be a way to be get notices about followups. Or not.

And on HN, sometimes I read the comments to see if it's worthwhile to follow
the original link. For example, sometimes the link seems like spam-bait, but
the comments suggest otherwise.

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wanghq
People commenting here could interact with other people and their comments
could be appreciated by others (voting).

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michaelpinto
In theory the community here should be startup oriented which gives it a
unique point of view.

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wanghq
yes, a hot thread here might only generate few comments on the original post.

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donavanm
Irony.

