> Comments There's certainly a base element of comments that should be independent of who you're replying to - you should reply to the comment, not the person.

> Comments There's certainly a base element of comments that should be independent of who you're replying to - you should reply to the comment, not the person. But one of the joys of HN is getting to interact with really interesting people. When you know a person's background, you can reply to them a little more fully. This plays out all the time around well-known HN members. When people reply to patio11's comments, for example, you can often see that some people know who he is and some don't. Sure, we know him to a large degree from his comments, but we also know him from the work he does. I'd love to be able to click on links in profiles because it would make it a little easier to check out people's work. I only visit profiles of people who make interesting comments; interesting comments tend to be made by people who are unlikely to include spam links in their profiles -> I'm not too worried about spammy links in profiles. But I don't run HN, and I trust them to make decisions like this with the best interests of the community in mind.