I can't find the original announcement of Startup News right now, but one of the reasons this site was set up was to gather intel on potential applicants. Your

I can't find the original announcement of Startup News right now, but one of the reasons this site was set up was to gather intel on potential applicants. Your comments tell them a lot about your character, which they use in decisions about whether to accept applicants or not. HN is "social media," so that's an example of the effect we were talking about.