[minimaxir]

Hacker News comments don't require the blood, sweat, and tears involved in writing a 1,000-word well-edited essay.

Additionally, Hacker News comments aren't used by the owning website for potential profit. (Y Combinator as a brand is likely hurt by HN comments anyways)

[bhouston]

> Y Combinator as a brand is likely hurt by HN comments anyways

Comments are the price some websites pay to encourage higher levels of engagement, and the high level of engagement here on HackerNews makes it a more valuable resource to its readers (more submissions, more voting, and sometimes informed comments from the community) and thus it has a halo effect on YCombinator. Thus the comments in the grand scheme of things are surely a net positive.

Reddit and YouTube are built in part on comment driven engagement even if a large majority of the comments are poor.

[atmosx]

I dislike not being able to leave a comment. Yes, I'm outspoken, strong-opinionated and I want to express myself. I liked the HN community before realizing that YCombinator is an incubator, etc. I am/were/came here for the community.

[lowglow]

> Hacker News comments don't require the blood, sweat, and tears involved in writing a 1,000-word well-edited essay.

Some people do take the time to write well thought out replies.

> Hacker News comments aren't used by the owning website for potential profit.

I'm going to disagree. HN profits GREATLY from your participation.

> Y Combinator as a brand is likely hurt by HN comments anyways

Not likely. Comments from an engaged community (no matter how cynical at times) still drives traffic, and that is a powerful in and of itself.

[untog]

"The HN crowd" has become an online meme for man-child Silicon Valley programmers. So I'd say there is at least a danger of that overflowing to perceptions of YC - just not for anyone YC probably cares about.

[dasil003]

Really? My perception is that "the HN crowd" is known for being pedantic know-it-alls criticizing every minute detail of anything. "Man-child" seems much more Slashdot/Reddit/Digg/4chan plus the rest of the internet.

[yen223]

I like the irony of a person talking about pedantic know-it-alls, via a comment that dissects the exact meaning of the phrase "the HN crowd".

[angersock]

It's not irony--it's merely illustrating the point.

[dasil003]

There's nothing pedantic about it, what I'm saying is that's a gross mischaracterization, not a precise meaning that I'm subtly dissecting.

If I wanted to be pedantic I would point out that even if your impression were correct it still wouldn't be ironic.

[dredmorbius]

HN also has a posting limit that's limiting for longer posts as well. Not to mention some crippling deficiencies in markup and other capabilities.