I’ve learned that I need community more than I thought I did. I have a blog, I get comments and e-mails on that blog. But what I’ve started to realize is that

I’ve learned that I need community more than I thought I did. I have a blog, I get comments and e-mails on that blog. But what I’ve started to realize is that there’s a "blogger penalty" to the conversations I can have there. No matter how hard I try to make people comfortable in saying anything to me the fact that it’s my blog still puts me in a perceived higher position in the conversation. What Hacker News does for me is to give me an environment to debate where everyone is on equal ground. Sure there are karma points but unless you go out of your way to look for them you won’t know who is at what level. That puts the focus on ideas more than people and that is a great thing. I still enjoy my blog and still post longer pieces to it. But I don’t know what I’d do without HN at this point.