[joeyo]

Another similarity between Hacker News and early Slashdot (I'm user #173) is that both, despite being link aggregators, felt like primary sources due to the commentators. For a time Slashdot was read and commented on by all of the primary Open Source figures and and Linux contributors (Alan Cox, Bruce Perens, ESR, Miguel de Icaza, to name a few) and a lot of other random technical people (I seem to recall John Carmack would occasionally post). For pretty much any technical story there would be someone relevant on-hand to comment.

Of course, at the time there was not really a well-developed online technology press and there was minimal blogging, so that degree of centralization can probably never be recreated. Still, Hacker Hews has a bit of this--certainly for anything relevant to startups or Silicon Valley. To some extent reddit does too vis-a-vis their IAmA threads.

[erik]

John Carmack did post there somewhat regularly.

http://slashdot.org/~John+Carmack/firehose

Paul Graham used to be a regular user as well.

http://slashdot.org/~bugbear/firehose

[bootload]

"... For a time Slashdot was read and commented on by all of the primary Open Source figures and and Linux contributors (Alan Cox, Bruce Perens, ESR, Miguel de Icaza, to name a few) and a lot of other random technical people (I seem to recall John Carmack would occasionally post). For pretty much any technical story there would be someone relevant on-hand to comment. ..."

#2774 here, I remember this well and it had a great effect. Every comment I was ask myself to think real hard, "is that worth posting". As for /. this is what I wrote about 6/7 years ago, sound familiar?

/. gone to seed

Since 1996 I`ve been making crappy comments and observations on slashdot. And I must say while I still like to frequently check the stories. I find them less interesting. The comments are less informative. Innovation less than inspiring. Its not just the dilution of smart readers that is a problem. ~ http://slashdot.org/journal/123931/-gone-2-seed-37