Don't know what the official word is, but personally I find them an appealing point of difference for HackerNews. We are, after all, meant to be a crowd more in

Don't know what the official word is, but personally I find them an appealing point of difference for HackerNews. We are, after all, meant to be a crowd more interestd in the cutting edge of technology and I quite enjoy being able to provide feedback to developers in various stages of production. Plus I've discovered some seriously awesome sites through them that otherwise would have passed me by.