I can't answer definitively, but I can say that it took a while to evolve. At first, people just asked questions directly. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=

I can't answer definitively, but I can say that it took a while to evolve. At first, people just asked questions directly. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1007 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1007 After a while, a few users (myself included) started using "Ask News.YC:" (The site wasn't called Hacker News yet. It was Startup News, but we all thought of it more as an extension to YC, than it's own property) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4641 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4641 Eventually it became a shorthand way of addressing the community, and wiki were created. http://remembersaurus.com/askhn.html http://remembersaurus.com/askhn.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive