Because the odds of getting Famous Joe Blow X to run a HN AMA are much, much higher than getting him to become an active HNer. We're talking about a one-time commitment versus extended involvement in our community.

Look at the roster of AMA guests on Reddit. How many of them are active Redditors? It's non-zero, but not substantially so. And yet, by participating in AMAs, they enrich Reddit's community.

EDIT EDIT: removed some belly-aching

That's the part I'm skeptical of, at least keeping in mind what community means in the HN sense. They don't really seem to be part of the Reddit community at all; they're more like the "content" that the Reddit community is discussing any given day. What's more interesting about the HN community to me is that some pretty accomplished people are actually part of the community.

Given the quality of questions/answers in a typical AMA, I'm not even sure how it's different from just linking to an offsite TechCrunch interview. Is it just some kind of fuzzy feeling of having participated?

I think this sums them up nicely. This is also why I feel they would be out of place in a forum centered around discussion, like HN.

Just since the 'setup' is the same, it doesn't mean the results will be the same. HN as a whole vs Reddit is proof of this on itself, I would say.

However, if Mr. Blow is not going to be active on HN anyway, what is the advantage of an AMA on HN over one on Reddit? And since the goal is to have Mr. Blow answer questions, what evidence is there that he is more likely to do so on HN than Reddit?

What makes HN great is not really fucking smart people answering fifteen questions of varying quality in 90 minutes. It's RFSP spending 90 minutes answering one really good question.

Calm your self:) It can happen easily by accident from things like small buttons on mobile devices.

Your comment has a positive score, isn't that enough of a positive signal?

A quick google search reveals https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/news-yc/id434787119?mt=8 for iOS, which includes a "confirm votes" toggle setting. There's https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rickylaish... for android as well.

Of course there is the reverse, where Will Shatner didnt want to do an AMA as he intended to stick around on a daily basis as opposed to a "one night only" type of event. That sort of thing seems to be what HN would prefer (if it wasnt will shatner but someone more useful).

(Also, the meta-implications of the fact that this poll is asking about AMAs rather than ELI5 amuses me.)

(explain like I'm 5)

Many probably would and, possibly worse, they might stick around.

I'd much rather just straight up ask him questions instead of waiting for him to appear.

It doesn't seem to be very successful. Then again, I'm not that interesting.