>> But overall does the participating directly relate to the work you have planned for yourself today If you consider breaks important (e.g. for organizing tho

>> But overall does the participating directly relate to the work you have planned for yourself today If you consider breaks important (e.g. for organizing thoughts, etc), I'd say yes, this beats water cooler chit-chat about Starcraft 2, for the reasons ed mentioned. I completely agree on the point about HN being a time/mindshare drain though.