I might be confused, but, is leadership in a social network same as (degree) centrality in this network? The leaderboard could be just a result of the centrality of the topics. What happens when other people touch these topics?

I doubt I count as anywhere close to the echo chamber (#65 right now).

On a side note, I wonder how many people on HN have actually met someone they recognize from HN?

Probably pretty rare since so many people don’t put detailed or full info of who they are. Or am I off here?

As someone with that much karma, have you became friends with any one on HN? I realize it is exceedingly difficult to do without private messages and such.

Not really. I think you hit it on the head as there is actually no contact on HN except replies. I know a couple of handles that I either really like or don't, but have no personal knowledge of them. I do admit that I've never been able to go to one of the meetups people have done.

The only person I know I have met was really secondary to HN. I met Bryan Cantrill (bcantrill) at Systems We Love in Minnesota. I sent him a t-shirt from the college I worked at.

Thank you for that, BTW -- that shirt had barely hit the drawer before my teenager stole it from me (curse of having kids the same size!) and I know that it has ended up in his rotation. It was great meeting in person in Minnesota, and thanks again for the shirt!

Glad to hear it. The three wolves shirt hasn't been printed in a while (COVID killed team sports). It makes me chuckle a kid out there is wearing a shirt from a TCU on a ND reservation. We must be big time.

People may be surprised how many are not in the echo chamber, or peer echo chambers.

patio11 showed up as a speaker at an event, and the only reason I'd heard of him at the time was HN.